“Content marketing is the only option left for business-to-business marketing”.
That is stressed by Ingrid Archer in an interview and during her presentation at the recent B2B Marketing Forum Amsterdam.
Archer is co-founder of spotONvision, a specialized B2B Marketing agency. She also organized the B2B Marketing Forum in The Netherlands for the second year.
According to Ingrid the role of content in B2B marketing has become more important over time. All relevant business information can be found online these days. 90% of the B2B buyers are actually using online to find relevant B2B information. Traditional paper brochures have lost a lot of their value.
How do you ‘create’ content?
“A B2B marketer should concentrate on the things that make real sense for the target audience. What information offers value to the customer?” , says Ingrid. “For example, you can write a decent article related to your insights and vision of your market. Or place a video on the website in which a costumer tells a valuable story.
Furthermore, make sure that you can be found online, and not only on your own website”. To order develop valuable content, Ingrid points out that you don’t always have to invent something new. You can obviously also recycle existing content. “And make sure that you use the people who are already in-house to develop new content. Colleagues from Product Development or Customer Services can give you valuable input and usually from a different perspective”
Frequently made mistakes in B2B marketing
Ingrid sees that companies are making many mistakes in their B2B marketing strategy. Some companies for example make content, but forget to promote it. They have a whitepaper hidden in the drawer, but never thought about what to do with it after writing it.
In addition, social media is very important. You want to spread the news and engage in a dialogue. However a lot of companies don’t want to do get started with social media. Corporate Communication departments sometimes even forbid the use of a blog or twitter as a marketing tool.
Passion for content marketing during the B2B Marketing Forum
At the recently held B2B Marketing Forum in Amsterdam these content and social media –related topics were the talk of the day. The congress was organized especially for the B2B marketer. “Now that is really unique for The Netherlands”, says Ingrid, because most events and marketing activities are usually focusing on Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing in The Netherlands. ‘Passion for their jobs binds the B2B marketers at the B2B Marketing Forum and that is pretty special.
Back to the topic of B2B Marketing, Ingrid concludes her story: I can’t say it often enough: “B2B marketers: Focus on content marketing!”
Watch the interview (in Dutch) with Ingrid Archer during the B2B Marketing Forum 2011 here.
In March 2012 the next B2B Marketing Forum Amsterdam will take place.
spotONvision organizes regular master classes on content marketing. Next one will take place on June 14th in Amsterdam. Any B2B marketing or communications professional is welcome to register now (please be aware that the master class will be held in Dutch and English).