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.

Best of B2B Marketing: Learn & Refine With Insight From Our Top 10 Content Marketing Posts

Lane Ellis on Dec 15th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

What were our top B2B content marketing articles of the year?

Content encompasses nearly everything we read, watch, or listen to, and as our CEO Lee Odden said years ago, it’s also represents a significant part of the reason the need for search technology began in the first place.

We’re proud of the continued content marketing successes our team of marketers at TopRank Marketing have achieved during another challenging year, for a wide-range of major B2B clients. As 2022 draws ever closer, we wanted to take time to share our top content marketing articles of the year — each filled with insights, best practices, research, examples, and a look towards the future.

We’re also fortunate to have a wealth of talented B2B marketing professionals contributing to the TopRank B2B Marketing blog — which celebrates its 19th year this month.

Best of B2B Marketing: Learn & Refine With Insight From Our Top 10 Content Marketing Posts

How B2B Content Marketing Can Build Trust that Stands the Test of Time

Joshua Nite on Nov 15th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Nothing sends up red flags faster than someone saying “Trust me.” It’s the same as “Honestly, I swear, it’s the truth!” You can’t build trust by demanding it — the more you talk about it, the less credible you sound.

Building trust takes continued action over time. It’s always a work in progress and it’s incredibly fragile.

Brands need to work on building that credibility with their audiences. In the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer report, 53% of respondents ranked trust as a deciding factor in purchase decisions, second only to affordability. The report also found trust is a crucial indicator for customer loyalty, with half of respondents saying it played a major role.

But here’s the challenge: less than half of those surveyed — in 11 countries across the globe — said they trust major brands.

How B2B Content Marketing Can Build Trust that Stands the Test of Time

Amp It Up: What B2B Marketers Need to Know about Social Influencer Amplification

Joshua Nite on Nov 1st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Allow me one more scary story, even though Halloween is over…

Once there was a marketer who created an eBook with content from ten respected influencers in their industry. The marketer released the eBook, sent an email to notify the contributors…

And not one of them shared the content. Without amplification, the content was dead on arrival, and some say it haunts the marketer’s office to this very day…

Whew! Spooky story, right? One of the big benefits of influencer marketing should be built-in amplification of the content.

But influencers don’t always hold up their end of the bargain. Fortunately, there are a few things that B2B content marketers can do throughout the content co-creation process to help influencers follow through on amplification.

Amp It Up: What B2B Marketers Need to Know about Social Influencer Amplification

10 Actionable B2B Content Marketing Insights From New Research

Lane Ellis on Oct 25th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Where is B2B content marketing headed in 2022 and beyond?

Continuing an impressive and time-tested marketing tradition, the recently-released twelfth annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends research report from Content Marketing Institute (CMI), MarketingProfs, and ON24 offers up a bountiful array of insights for B2B content marketers, and helps us answer this key question and several others.

The 54-page 2021 edition provides a comprehensive look at how some of the top content marketers have been making an impact and achieving success during the past year, even with the unprecedented challenges we’ve all faced.

B2B content marketing is growing in importance, scope, and adoption by organizations of all sizes, and is poised to see further expansion in 2022 and beyond, as we’ll examine.

10 Actionable B2B Content Marketing Insights From New Research

Why Empathy Matters More than Ever in B2B Content Marketing (And How to Get It Right)

Joshua Nite on Oct 20th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B marketers, ready for some TRUTH BOMBS?

Here we go: We need to make our content more human and more empathetic. B2B content doesn’t have to be boring; in fact, it can’t be boring and be effective. B2B buyers are just people — we need to talk to them like people.

Are you blown away by the depth and breadth of my insight? Ready to book me at your next marketing conference?

Okay, all sarcasm aside: We all have heard the old “B2Me” speech a dozen times. I’m not here to give it to you again.

Instead, I want to get deeper into the specifics of what it means to be empathetic and provide value with content.

Why Empathy Matters More than Ever in B2B Content Marketing (And How to Get It Right)

Equilibrium: 10 Tips to Balance Creativity and Process in B2B Content Marketing

Joshua Nite on Sep 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Marketers have to continually earn and reward people’s attention. If we fail at that task, there are plenty of other content options out there. People — yes, even B2B buyers — want engaging, entertaining and valuable content.

That’s great news for those of us on the content side! It means we should be regularly exercising our creative muscles, breaking free of boring B2B, and coming up with new ways to delight our readers. How cool is it, for example, to make Ghostbusters references… for your job?

But as fun and creative as the work can be, there’s a cerebral and analytical side to marketing that we can’t neglect. If you came into marketing through creative writing, not the other way around, you may need to develop the left-brain part of the job:

Equilibrium: 10 Tips to Balance Creativity and Process in B2B Content Marketing

5 Tips for Promoting B2B Content Co-Created with Influencers

Debbie Friez on Sep 8th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Working with influencers creates an amazing opportunity to co-create and co-promote content for B2B brands. The brand can promote the influencer and vice versa. It’s a win-win.

Along with the win comes a responsibility to promote your B2B marketing content in a way that captures attention. It’s social media marketing after-all. To help you get the most out of your investment in content collaborations with influencers, here are 5 tips to spice up your social media posts. Follow this advice and the valuable content your influencers have helped you create will better reach, engage and inspire your customers.

5 Tips for Promoting B2B Content Co-Created with Influencers

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Lee Odden on Jul 26th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

Content is the research search began in the first place.

Learning about how to get customers to visit newly created websites is where my search engine optimization education began. In that journey from before there was a Google to today, many things have changed. What has stayed the same is the opportunity to grow business by connecting customers to content by being the best answer and inspiring those customers to take action.

The best SEO practitioners stay on top of what’s current, always experimenting and evaluating what works for topics in a particular industry for the websites and content they’re in charge of attracting customers to. At the same time, the best SEO advice isn’t worth much if it doesn’t get implemented. That’s why many marketers with long term SEO experience emphasize the fundamentals.

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

Joshua Nite on Jul 20th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

B2B marketers have been pushing for personalized content for a good long while. Now we’re also trying to humanize content — to make the case that B2B buyers are human beings who want to connect with other humans on an emotional level.

Isn’t it remarkable that we still have to make that argument?

But I’m not here to write another 1000 words about humanizing content. I want us to take it a step further, beyond personalization, humanization, personality and empathy.

B2B content marketing needs to come from the heart.

True, genuine heart is the last frontier in content. Every brand has an Instagram with behind-the-scenes content to boost authenticity. Every brand is striving to give at least the appearance of sincerity, personality and transparency.

Write from the Heart for More Memorable B2B Content Marketing

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Lee Odden on Jun 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Inside B2B Influence is a show that goes behind the scenes of B2B marketing and showcases conversations with insiders from the world of influencer marketing. We connect with influential practitioners at B2B brands of all kinds and sizes to answer the rising number of questions about working with influencers in a business context.

In this first episode of the second season of Inside B2B Influence, I was able to catch up with the incredibly popular, talented and beloved Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, Ann Handley. I’ve known Ann for well over 10 years and she’s been a great friend, client and source of inspiration to me about more meaningful content marketing.

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Optimize for B2B Customers with Digital First Content Marketing

Lee Odden on Jun 7th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

The evolution of B2B marketing has required companies to extend the transformations and pivots made during the pandemic to more permanent changes in marketing driven by evolving consumer preferences for information discovery, consumption and interaction. B2B marketing is evolved as a digital first practice and there’s no going back.

While most marketers understand it is simply not enough to rely on push marketing tactics and advertising, they still rely on these familiar and comfortable tactics.

Today’s business customers have more content choices in text, images, audio, video and interactive formats on more devices than ever. They expect more than just useful information from the brands they buy from.

Optimize for B2B Customers with Digital First Content Marketing