While the messenger is important, it is the message at the end of the day that determines whether your target audience will do business with you.

That being said, what is your B2B content telling clients about your business? Is it updated regularly? Does it provide informative ideas, news and tips, or is it like an old Washington politician, a retread?

A 2011 Marketing Sherpa e-mail Benchmark survey pointed out that providing relevant content in emails was pegged as the biggest challenge by close to 70 percent of B2B marketers.

Many marketers will be the first to admit that while content volume and diversity prove important, the relevancy of the content is by and large the most critical point to hammer home. To keep your audience engaged, it is critical to resist the urge to churn out content and posts just to get something out.

How Can I Provide More Relevant Content?

Successful B2B marketers must these factors into consideration:

• Who are we marketing to? – This sounds like a dumb question, but it is important in order to provide better content for them. If you’re not studying the analytics of your audience, you are essentially winging it. Make it one of your goals going into the New Year to gather and analyze the data your metrics are providing you. If your metrics are not keeping up their end of the deal, then find software that better breaks down your client list. Once you have powerful metrics in your hands, use that data to identify what is of greatest interest to your clientele.
• Employ both short and long-term goals for your clients – Use your content marketing to help solve issues for clients. Remember, their needs are your needs, so solve them with that approach in mind. Look at it as building a bridge that leads somewhere, preferably to a long-term relationship. Therefore, you need to connect with your clients via your content;
• Diversity in your content approach – Content comes in many shapes and sizes, and this is especially important from a marketing stand point. Use a variety of mediums i.e. blogs, podcasts, videos, social media and more to connect with your clients. More often than not, think outside the box when it comes to your content. Sure, a blog post or two are great, but doesn’t just about every marketer do that? We’ve talked before about the advantages of things like webinars and videos, but are you using them? If not, why not? While the written content is important, the audio and visual content can be so much more impactful;
• The shorter the better – Stop and ask yourself for a minute what you do when someone tries to market you with long and boring content. Do you flow to it with open arms or reject it? In guessing the answer is the latter, be sure to market your content in a neatly packaged form, with a focus on shorter is better. Companies are operating as lean as ever with most workers are short on time. Get your message across early on in the message, and then wrap it up with a call to action. If you do this, you improve the chances of your message being heard;
• We are one – Lastly and most importantly, be in sync with your sales team. It is not the job of the marketer to sell, but to put clients in place to be sold on your product and/or services. Your marketing efforts should be just that, marketing. If you try and market and sell, you stand the risk of alienating more than just the client.

While these factors seem like child’s play to the seasoned marketer, it never hurts to review them.

Without relevant content, you are in essence irrelevant in the eyes of your customers.

Tell us how you are designing relevant content for your clients.

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