Stop talking to yourself – how to talk to a net new audience

Kick start your B2B marketing

Here is a common challenge we hear when talking to prospective clients.

They’ve strategized, planned an approach to content marketing and lined up some fantastic customer case studies. They have worked hard to distil important company messages into content that will resonate with their audience, which is well researched and highly targeted.

They’ve worked with the team to get a content pipeline published on the website and synced with the social media lead to push out over all their channels. But they’ve been left asking, where the hell are all the visitors and leads?

So, they pushed it harder over social, convinced their colleagues and connections to post and share and the engagement goes up – just a little bit as a result. Great? Not so great? It’s net new visitors they are looking for and net new visitors that are prospects.

So seriously, just where is that audience?

Creating and hosting owned content on your company blog or creating case studies and white papers as part of inbound and lead gen is a really smart move for B2B marketers – that’s why most are doing it: 91% in fact.

The fast track to the front of the pack

So, what’s missing then? How do we kick start this campaign to get a brand and its content in front of readers in the first place, and how do we establish it as an instantly credible voice in the industry?

It’s time to look to the media. They’ve been ‘doing content’ for longer and better than most B2B brands ever will and have rightfully earned the authority they hold.

The best magazines have registered readers truly interested in developments that the magazine writes about.

Almost every market is served by a pool of trusted and respected media outlets. They understand their audience and serve up specialized knowledge on specific industry areas – many have some pretty respectable unique visitors (UVPM) figures and email subscriber numbers. When your brand is regularly featured, you will be able to:

• • Reach a targeted, engaged audience

 

• • Build trust with your most important prospects

 

• • Demonstrate thought leadership and expertise in key areas

 

• • Showcase customer case studies in the media as real examples of success

 

• • Demonstrate the brand’s momentum in the market

 

• • Boost backlinks from authoritative domains

 

Which of these is not an important part of the marketing mix in B2B?

Clear opportunities for brands that deliver value

As a marketer or a PR pro there is a fantastic opportunity to engage with these outlets through contributed content – which is much more common than it used to be. Fewer journalists, pushing out more and more content has made this a necessity for some media groups – but you can’t just grab an old blog you liked out of the archives and ask for it to be published. Editorial standards remain high and providing valuable, unique content to retain and engage readers is still the top priority for most journalists and editors.

There is, however, a chance. If you pick the right outlet or journalist who covers the beat, fine tune your content to educate and enlighten their readers and crucially, get the story pitch right in the first place, you are well on your way to getting media coverage and have taken the first step in establishing a thought leadership campaign.

The power of persuasion

Content marketing is producing results and 73% of B2B marketers rate their organization’s approach as either moderately or very successful in achieving their desired goals. But it is a long-term strategy and you need to establish yourself and build trust by proving the company over time.

It’s not always the first company to bring a product to market or even the company with the best product on offer which finds success. It’s the ones that capture a spot in the minds of the audience first, which are seen as the market leaders – and that’s a powerful position.

If you have content and are looking to get in front of B2B decision makers and audiences that matter to your business, take a look at the latest IBA eBook which delves a bit deeper into the process behind gaining traction in the media.

Reka Agopcsa is a PR Executive at IBA International.