What you should be Writing about in your Content Marketing

Struggling to get your content marketing off the ground? Click here to learn what you should be writing about… and why.

Picture of George Linley George Linley

Published: 25 Dec 2015

5 minutes read

What you should be Writing about in your Content Marketing

Unless you’ve been burying your head under the sand, you will know by now that content marketing is pretty essential for B2B businesses. In the complex sales cycle, B2B content marketing helps form the all-important bridge between getting found by prospects and converting them into leads.

So yes, content is the glue that holds your entire strategy together – and its importance cannot be neglected. With significant pressure for your content to perform, some marketers can struggle to generate content ideas and get the ball rolling. If you continually find yourself staring at a blank screen, don’t suffer in silence! This blog post has been created to help you decide what to write about and which topics to avoid like the plague.

Write about your prospect pains 

This is what B2B content marketing all boils down to. Identifying your prospect pains and solving them with helpful, educational content. Well that seems like a straight-forward concept, actually putting this into action may initially seem more difficult. But…it doesn’t have to be!

The easiest way to identify your prospect pains is to go back to basics. Think about your existing customers – what common complaints and issues regularly come to light in meetings and discussions (your sales team may be able to shed more light on this)? As a starting point, think about these common pains and turn them into blog posts – it really is that straightforward.

As an example, Marcus Sheridan (better known as the Sales Lion), transformed his swimming pool business by simply answering questions from his customers and prospects.

Marcus regularly received questions from prospects in relation to swimming pool advice, which he answered in the form of blog posts in his free time. For example, a prospect was interested in the options available for his family pool. As a result, a blog titled: ‘choosing the right fibreglass pool for you and your family’ was created, educating the original enquirer and others seeking advice on the same issue. 

As time went on, Marcus and his team become a valuable source of information for people looking to purchase swimming pools. As Marcus’s blog posts are high quality, educational and relevant, prospects began to trust his advice and so turned to his company: ‘River Pools and Spas’, when making a swimming pool purchase.

While B2B products and services are typically more complex than swimming pools, Marcus’s approach to marketing can (and should) be implemented in your own strategy. 

Through keeping a firm focus on answering burning prospect questions with educational content, your business should see a positive impact in the number of quality leads you generate.

Write about solutions 

Ok, so you’ve identified your prospect pains – great! However, identification is of little importance to readers if you don’t offer a defined solution to their problem. This is why the B2B marketer and readers alike love step-by-step blog posts and guides. These content marketing types arm prospects with the information to tackle their pains, while positioning your service or product as the preferred service provider, once prospects are in the decision stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Write about industry developments

You live and breathe your industry on a daily basis. It’s safe to say that you will be clued up on the latest industry developments, new technologies and the latest trends. Your prospects on the other-hand, will be unlikely to hold as much knowledge on your industry as you and your colleagues. Through positioning your business as a centre for up-to-date industry news and insights, you can present your business as knowledgeable and so therefore a worthy service provider. 

Don’t write promotional content

Of course, every website should include a services section – how else would a prospect learn exactly what your business does? However, overly-promotional content doesn’t belong in your marketing strategy, especially during the early stages of the buyer’s journey. HubSpot discovered that 96% of prospects are not ready to buy when they first visit your site. This is because a prospect may have not even identified their problem yet and so your solution will be irrelevant at this stage. Even if they have identified their problem, it is unlikely that they will have dedicated themselves to a solution, let alone thought about a possible service provider. Therefore, promotional content is unlikely to provide any relevance to prospects at this stage. In fact, it is more likely to achieve the opposite. Overly-promotional content will irritate prospects, as it suggests that you have ignored their needs for educational content and are out of touch with their pains. 

In order to achieve great results from your content marketing strategy, your content needs to be able to effectively stand out from the crowd. With competition stiffer than ever, we’ve created a helpful guide for creating exciting and engaging content in the B2B space. 

Become a thought leader in your industry

Our content marketing guide has everything you need to know about becoming a thought leader within your industry, including top tips and best practices.

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