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.

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

6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

I’m going to knock on wood as I type this, but: It looks like we might have a (mostly) normal summer this year in the U.S. After the lockdowns, isolation, anxiety and fear of 2020, it finally feels like things are opening up.

This is all great for everything except getting people to read your marketing content. In 2020 we had a captive audience starved for entertainment. Now we’ll be competing with everything from music festivals to movies to walking in the park.

The way to break through and have a “hot brand summer?” First, don’t use phrases like “hot brand summer,” because you’ll just make people hate you. Second, it’s all about customer engagement. That means connecting with people on a personal level, offering something novel and fascinating, and using that contact to build a meaningful relationship.

6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Stand-Up Comedy

Joshua Nite on May 25th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Stand-up comedians need to make a connection with their audience. It starts with getting attention, then stoking interest, developing a rapport, and ultimately provoking a reaction.

To do it right, you need empathy, knowledge of your audience, creativity…oh, and a spark that makes you unique.

B2B marketers: Does any of the above sound familiar? I’ve been a professional marketer and an amateur comedian for over a decade, and it’s surprising how much the two inform each other.

Here are just a few lessons that B2B marketers can learn from standup.

Keep It Real

In the early 19th century, standup comedy depended on wordplay and absurdism. For example: “Take my wife…please!” or “The other night I shot an elephant in my pajamas… how he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Stand-Up Comedy

How B2B Marketers Can Build a Community of Influence with Content

Lee Odden on May 24th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

One of the most compelling scenarios for B2B marketers to build content and community is through a combination user generated content (UGC) and strategic content collaborations. To do this, many B2B brands will initiate ongoing social media content and engagement programs to stimulate dialog with customers, community and influencers to build essential relationships.

With B2B marketing shifting to digital first, there is more demand for content than ever, but there are also resource challenges with the need to continuously create new content. At the same time traditional social media and content marketing can have trust issues if the brand isn’t engaging with the community or the right influencers on a regular basis. A content marketing focused solution that solves for both of those challenges that also helps build community and influence for B2B brands can be found through participation marketing – aka, user generated content in the form of content collaborations with external influencers, brand community and customers.

How B2B Marketers Can Build a Community of Influence with Content

10 Ways to Drive Revenue through Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi

Lee Odden on May 20th, 2021
Content Marketing, Guest Posts

Huge congratulations to Joe Pulizzi on the release of the completely updated and expanded edition of Content Inc. Also thanks to Joe for contributing one of the handful of guest posts we’ve ever accepted here at TopRank’s B2B Marketing Blog. Along with thousands of other marketers, I’ve learned a lot from Joe and you will too.

Read on to discover 10 ways you can drive revenue for your business through content marketing from the Godfather of Content Marketing himself:

Whether you are a marketing professional, content entrepreneur or a media executive, driving revenue from an audience is always the same. Once you build a loyal and trusting audience through your content marketing or media strategy, there are 10 different ways to generate revenue: six direct sources and four indirect sources.

10 Ways to Drive Revenue through Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi

Content Marketing Optimization Audits – Find Where SEO Can Boost Content Marketing Success

Lee Odden on May 17th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

SEO and content marketing intersect in more ways than optimizing web pages with keywords.

Answering the question, “How does SEO and content marketing strategy interact?” starts with understanding customers, behaviors and preferences for information discovery, consumption and sharing. Knowing what customers care about and how those concerns and interests manifest as search keywords and social topics folds very well into the keyword research practiced by professional SEOs.

Keyword Glossaries and Editorial Plans can be valuable tools for marketers to aid in creating relevant content that is inherently optimized for customers and target audiences alike. Specific keyword optimization is appropriate as well, but the end content product becomes much easier to find, consume and share if an understanding of customer questions is translated into topics and keywords from the start. This is the core of how brands can become the best answer for what customers are looking for.

Content Marketing Optimization Audits – Find Where SEO Can Boost Content Marketing Success

How to Accelerate Reach and Engagement of B2B Content Through Co-Creation

Nick Nelson on May 12th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

“Look, I made this!”

Sharing things we create is a human compulsion that traces back to childhood. Whether you’re showing your mom a drawing so she can pin it up on the fridge, or linking social media followers to your latest blog post, it’s natural for people of all ages to proudly broadcast their creative output.

Therein lies the power of co-creation for content amplification. “If you want your content reach to be great, ask your community to participate.”

Let’s explore this approach to content collaboration from a B2B marketing perspective.

Why Co-create Content for B2B Marketing?

There are many benefits to collaborative content creation. TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden covered several in his writeup last year on winning at B2B influence with the magic of content co-creation. Among them:

How to Accelerate Reach and Engagement of B2B Content Through Co-Creation

Trust and the Search for Answers: How Influence Optimizes SEO Performance

Lee Odden on May 3rd, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, SEO

According to the annual Global Digital Overview Report from We Are Social and Hootsuite, 81% of internet users search online for a product or service to buy and 74% have purchased online. Without question, digital engagement and commerce is the new normal and is as relevant for B2B companies as it has been for B2C.

During the pandemic, search engines have become even more important as B2B brands and buyers alike digital transform to virtual engagement for information discovery, consumption and interaction. As a result, many companies have invested more in search engine optimization in order to capture the fast-growing opportunities to be the best answer for customers at the moment of need – when actively searching for solutions.

Best practices for SEO abound on the web including this list from SEMrush:

Trust and the Search for Answers: How Influence Optimizes SEO Performance

B2B Content Marketing: 10 Tips to Level Up Your Writing Skills

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

What is the biggest challenge a writer faces?

Nothing.

Well, by “nothing,” I mean a blank white screen and a blinking cursor.

It mocks you with its unlimited potential. It fills you with fear that anything you put on that screen won’t be an improvement over its pristine emptiness.

We content marketers have to face this challenge nearly every day, and somehow find a way to write content that connects, engages, and persuades.

I’ve spent my entire adult life working in the content trenches — first as a comedy writer, and now as a content marketer. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up that can elevate your writing and make that blank screen less daunting.

10 Tips for B2B Marketers to Elevate Their Writing Skills

#1: READ

B2B Content Marketing: 10 Tips to Level Up Your Writing Skills

Beyond SEO: B2B Content Optimization for Trust and Customer Experience

Lee Odden on Apr 26th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

As the world’s most popular search engine, Google says its mission is to “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

To be the best answer for customers that are looking for solutions, B2B marketers need to understand the opportunities to make information easy for search engines to find, index, and sort in search results.

A big part of optimizing the customer’s search experience is understanding myriad data sources and file types that can be included in search results. By understanding these opportunities, B2B marketers can inventory their digital assets and create a better, more holistic SEO strategy that realizes the benefit of inclusion and visibility in all the places and formats that matter to customers who are looking.

Beyond SEO: B2B Content Optimization for Trust and Customer Experience

5 Things B2B Content Marketers Need to Know About Working with Influencers

Lee Odden on Apr 12th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Given the rapid increase in influencer engagement amongst B2B brands over the past year, the opportunity and impact from working with influencers has become clear, especially with influencer content marketing according to the B2BIMReport:

Results – 63% of B2B marketers agree that marketing would have better results if it included an influencer marketing program.
Always-On Wins – 12X more marketers who run alway-on influencer marketing programs are very successful vs those running periodic campaigns.
Impact on CX – 74% of B2B marketers agree that influencer marketing improves customer and prospect experience with the brand.

1. B2B Content Influencer Marketing defined:

The practice of engaging internal and industry experts with active networks to collaborate on content in a way that drives mutual value and helps achieve measurable business goals.

5 Things B2B Content Marketers Need to Know About Working with Influencers

How B2B Brands Can Boost Confidence in Livestream Video, Podcast and Clubhouse Marketing

Lee Odden on Mar 8th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Without a doubt, the challenges and changes of 2020 have pulled business customers towards digital formats more than ever, especially with video and audio content.

Is Text Content Dead? Of course, text will always have its place in content marketing like this very blog post, but video and audio in recorded or live formats have emerged as a top preference for customer engagement. Whether livestreaming on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook or publishing podcasts and hosting rooms on breakout audio social network, Clubhouse, content marketers have a significant opportunity to create more engaging experiences to meet the evolving expectations of their customers in 2021.

How B2B Brands Can Boost Confidence in Livestream Video, Podcast and Clubhouse Marketing