Content Marketing

Content marketing is the planning, creation, promotion and measurement of content for a specific audience and intended to inspire a business outcome. With over 90% of B2B and B2C marketers engaging in content marketing, it’s more important than ever to make sure your content stands out from the crowd.

As the only blog to be named #1 content marketing blog three times by Content Marketing Institute, TopRank is dedicated to helping marketers understand the opportunities, best practices and current trends in the world of content marketing.

Browse our content marketing articles to find tips, guides, expert interviews, conference liveblogging and best practices.

5 B2C Content Marketing Techniques that B2B Marketers Should Steal (And 5 They Shouldn’t Touch)

B2B marketers, are we over the B2C envy yet?

We used to have a legitimate reason to be envious. B2C marketers got to be more creative, personal, emotional, and interactive. We were stuck with dry, logical appeals with no-frills presentation.

These days, though, B2B marketers can be just as dynamic and creative as our B2C counterparts. And we not only can, we should.

Yet we still hear that drumbeat: “B2B marketing needs to be more like B2C.”

Does it really?

I would argue yes, but only to a certain point. B2B is its own discipline with its own best practices. There are a few recent developments in B2C that we should borrow, but there are just as many strategies and tactics that don’t translate as well.

5 B2C Content Marketing Techniques that B2B Marketers Should Steal (And 5 They Shouldn’t Touch)

Problem Solved: Increase B2B Content Marketing Success by Conquering 4 Conundrums

Nick Nelson on Feb 23rd, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

In his recently-published book, What’s Your Problem: Become a Better B2B Marketer by Enhancing Your Problem-Solving Skills, Steve Goldhaber argues that the discipline of content marketing boils down to a simple consistent objective: solving problems.

It’s a reasonable framing. Almost every piece of marketing content is essentially aimed at solving a problem. This really gets to the fundamental intent of B2B content marketing as a practice: by helping our audience solve day-to-day problems and overcome business challenges, we hope that they’ll eventually consider using our product or service to solve a bigger problem.

But content marketers can’t focus solely on solving problems for customers. We also need to look inward and address key challenges that threaten the value and impact of our problem-solving content. The old saying about “getting your own house in order” comes to mind.

Problem Solved: Increase B2B Content Marketing Success by Conquering 4 Conundrums

6 Eye-Opening B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2021

Nick Nelson on Feb 16th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

“You can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that.” – Homer Simpson

Homer might be right, generally speaking. But I still maintain that good, accurate, timely statistics from trusted sources can serve as vital guideposts and benchmarking tools, especially when it comes to business strategy.

This certainly applies in my own corner of the business world: the fast-changing and critically important field of B2B content marketing.

Trends in content marketing tend to reflect broader truths, since we’re talking about the ways in which companies and customers interact and communicate. Because of this, I like to keep a close eye on new research and data as it surfaces, filing away nuggets that strike me as especially telling.

6 Eye-Opening B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2021

21 New Marketing Jokes for Unprecedented Times

Joshua Nite on Feb 9th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Why write jokes about marketing?

Why write, to be specific, 101 jokes about marketing over the last five years?

I came to marketing from the comedy world, and was genuinely surprised back then at how little personality there was in B2B content. Back in 2015, people were still asking whether B2B marketing could be funny — whether it would torpedo a serious brand to come out with humorous content.

Now we’ve finally admitted that B2B buyers like to laugh just like everyone else. And we’re seeing that humor can be a powerful way to bring people together. Used the right way, it can illustrate the shared human experiences that unite us all, showing that our trials and triumphs make us more alike than we are different.

21 New Marketing Jokes for Unprecedented Times

5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters

Joshua Nite on Jan 27th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Never underestimate the corporate world’s ability to take something that should be intuitive, and make it weird by overthinking it.

Case in point: We used to say, “B2B doesn’t have to be boring.” Which indicates that for a long time, folks truly believed that B2B did have to be boring — that B2B buyers were a unique species of creature that operated without emotion and wanted the driest content possible.

Now we’re talking about how we need to “humanize” B2B content. And doesn’t that sound like some kind of filter you run your content through after you make it? I picture something that looks like a fax machine, where you load the content in the top, and push a big red button marked “HUMANIZE.”

5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters

5 Standout Traits of the Best B2B Content Marketers

Nick Nelson on Jan 24th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

My favorite part of playing a sports video game is the “Create a Player” function. It gives me the opportunity to set realism aside and dream up the most legendary, dominant athletic specimen imaginable. On the basketball court, no real-life point guard would be able to match up against “Dimes McGee,” my customized 7-foot-10 wunderkind with 99 ratings for shooting, passing, ball-handling, speed, and defense. Talk about optimization!

What if you could “create a player” in B2B content marketing? Which attributes would you want to max out in order to fabricate the most successful practitioner possible? It’s a fun and interesting question to contemplate, in large part because the answers now are different than even a few years ago.

Which traits and characteristics define the most effective B2B content marketers in 2021?

5 Standout Traits of the Best B2B Content Marketers

How B2B Marketers Can Get Closer to Their Customers

Joshua Nite on Jan 7th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Last year I finished up my fifth full year as a B2B marketer. A lot has changed in that half decade.

When I started, there was a growing movement: “B2B marketing doesn’t have to be boring.”

Now we’ve finally moved on to, “B2B marketing can’t afford to be boring.” We’ve finally acknowledged that B2B buyers are people — they want useful information, they want to be entertained, and they’re just as bored by corporate-speak-laden white papers as everyone else.

To our credit, I think marketers already knew this. We just had to convince the rest of the organization.

For the most part, we marketers have more leeway to choose the best way to reach our audience. And, of course, with that freedom comes responsibility.

How B2B Marketers Can Get Closer to Their Customers

Pitfall! Steering Clear of 5 Common B2B Content Marketing Missteps

Nick Nelson on Jan 5th, 2021
Content Marketing

It’s been almost 40 years since Pitfall!, the classic side-scrolling platformer for the original Atari, was first released. David Crane’s creation went on to become one of the first console video game hits, selling more than 4 million copies, and is now remembered as an influential breakthrough for the medium.

Why did Pitfall! gain such rampant popularity? Because it was realistic and relatable!

I’m not talking about the pixelated 2D graphics or exotic jungle setting. I’m talking about the basic premise of problem-solving. The game is full of traps, hazards, and challenges, but there’s always a way around them. “Oh hey, a giant pit full of alligators. How will I get to the other side? Perhaps by grabbing hold of that swinging vine…”

Pitfall! Steering Clear of 5 Common B2B Content Marketing Missteps

Best of B2B Marketing: Get Inspired for 2021 with These Top 10 Content Marketing Posts

Lane Ellis on Dec 31st, 2020
Content Marketing

Content encompasses nearly everything we read, view, or listen to this pandemic year, and as our CEO Lee Odden said long ago, it’s also part of the reason the need for search began in the first place.

We’re especially proud of the content marketing successes our team at TopRank Marketing have achieved during this topsy-turvy 2020, for a wide-range of major B2B clients. As 2021 draws close, we wanted to share our top content marketing articles of the year — each filled with best practices, research, examples, and the latest trends.

We’re fortunate to have a wealth of talented B2B marketing professionals contributing to the TopRank B2B Marketing blog — which celebrates its 17th year this month — including Lee Odden, Joshua Nite, Elizabeth Williams, Anne Leuman, Nick Nelson, Debbie Friez, Birdie Zepeda, myself, and Alexis Hall, among others.

Best of B2B Marketing: Get Inspired for 2021 with These Top 10 Content Marketing Posts

10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence

Lane Ellis on Nov 18th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

How does authentic content help drive better customer experience?

And how does influence help optimize B2B content marketing performance?

Both of these are important questions for today’s B2B marketers heading into the uncertainty of 2021, where we face falling organic social reach and declining brand trust. To help guide the way we have gathered together the answers to these key questions and eight others.

Our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden explored the topics of authentic content and how influence can optimize content marketing performance during virtual presentations for the ContentTECH Summit and the IABC MN Convergence Summit, and we’ll share some of the top take-aways from his insight-filled sessions.

Let’s dig right in and look at Lee’s 10 pointers to create better B2B content with authentic influence in our age of the new normal.

10 Expert Pointers To Create Better B2B Content With Authentic Influence

Incredible Content Marketing: 6 Tips for Infusing Credibility into B2B Content

Nick Nelson on Nov 10th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

One of my favorite moments from The Simpsons is when the hilariously incompetent physician Dr. Nick burns down a building by mishandling a clearly marked chemical tank, and then exclaims, “Inflammable means flammable?! What a country!”

via GIPHY

“Incredible” is a word that can spark similar cognitive dissonance for marketers. Sure, it might technically be defined as “impossible to believe,” but if your content isn’t credible, would anyone describe it as incredible?

Quite the opposite. In this business, incredible means credible. So let’s explore the cornerstones of creating credible, and thus truly incredible, content marketing.

Incredible Content Marketing: 6 Tips for Infusing Credibility into B2B Content