The enterprise tech industry is a competitive space. When there’s a myriad of solutions and products to sell and only so many customers, things are bound to get fierce. That’s why it’s so important that every enterprise tech company has an effective content strategy.
Back in the good old days, customers came to enterprise tech companies with no knowledge of the product they were looking for. They only knew that they needed a solution and that the company was selling it. Nowadays, things are very different. Thanks to the digital revolution, there’s a wealth of information available to everyone. That means that customers are better informed than ever before, so every enterprise tech company needs to gain the trust of their customers before they make a purchase.
Effective content marketing is a great way to gain that trust. Traditional advertising is less impactful than ever before. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. That’s why it’s so important to nail your content strategies. By spreading brand awareness, you also increase your brand’s credibility and generate more leads as a result.
The target audience
It’s essential to understand who your customers are and what their needs are. You may have several groups of customers. Say, for example, your solutions cater to financial directors, accounts teams and CEOs. Each of these groups will require different services and be looking to achieve different goals. A financial director might want greater financial stability. An accounts team might be looking to save time and reduce manual, repetitive labour. A CEO might want clear and reliable information to inform business decisions. By identifying these different groups, your enterprise tech company will better understand how to market its products and services.
Creating a buyer persona is a great way to visualise your audience. By inventing a perfect customer for each audience group, you can better understand how to market towards them and how to create content strategies geared towards engaging them.
Unique and informative content
‘Content’ can mean a range of different things. It could be a blog post, a visual asset, a video, a downloadable, interviews with industry thought leaders. It includes absolutely anything that you create for consumption by your audience. In such a visual age, it’s important to invest heavily in highly visual, engaging content. 70% of marketers believe that content adorned with visuals will reap better business results in 2021.
For most enterprise tech companies, a good place to start is infographics. The majority of the solutions you’ll be selling will be complex and require lengthy information to properly convey all its benefits. With infographics, you can attractively convey that information and bring in a lot of engagement. Typically infographics are the most popular form of visual content, bringing in 40% of the user engagement for brands. Visual content allows for information to be consumed faster and holds the viewer’s attention for longer. It might take some time to learn how to create attractive and engaging infographics, but there is plenty of free software out there to help you along the way. Play around with Canva, Venngage or Visme and see just how easy it is to make insightful, engaging infographics.
Infographics aren’t the only way to go, though. You could also create how-to videos for your solutions so customers can see how quick and easy they are to use. There are also user-generated content strategies. You could ask established customers to provide a photo or video testimonials to build credibility and offer unique ways of using your products. No matter what content you create, make sure it’s original, unique and offers a form of value to your audience.
Calendars for constant content
It can be incredibly difficult to constantly be creating new, unique and engaging content for days on end. Everyone encounters some form of writer’s block that prevents them from churning out posts. There will always be new events within the tech industry that provide ample opportunity for content, but what about the content you create in-between those big events?
By creating a content calendar, you can ensure a smooth and effective workflow. Especially if there are multiple team members involved in the content creation and distribution process. Whether your calendar is monthly or quarterly, it’s important to map out your content in advance so you never have to scramble last minute for ideas.
You can use a range of platforms for your content calendar. If you’re looking for an easy and accessible place to start, you could even just use an Excel spreadsheet. All you’ll need is a list of the content, its objective, the channel it’ll be published to, the budget allocated for promotion and if it’s been signed off or not. It’s that easy! Once you start using a content calendar, you’ll wonder how you ever got anything done without it.
Thought leadership
As we mentioned before, you could form a unique content strategy in the form of interviews with industry thought leaders. It’s a great way to boost your credibility by aligning your brand with established, trusted individuals – but have you ever considered becoming one of those thought leaders yourself? Positioning your brand at the forefront of thought leadership is a really powerful strategy. It’s a constant effort and certainly not for the unambitious, but if you’re relentless in your efforts, it’s an achievable goal. Here are some tips to get you started:
1. Network – You can’t become a thought leader if you don’t have any thought followers. Try to establish relationships whenever possible. Reach out to larger influencers and ask if they’d be interested in giving an interview or even just talking about their work. Starting a dialogue is all it takes to build contacts. (And creating content like a podcast or a written article out of that dialogue is even better!) The more people you connect with, and the more authority they have, the more authority you’ll gain as a result.
2. Interaction – Once you’ve established a connection with fellow industry professionals, it’s important to foster and maintain that relationship. Keep a close eye on the people you’ve connected with, big brands in your space, and take note of what they’re doing well. You’ll be able to learn from their marketing efforts and utilise them yourselves. You’ll also be able to foster your relationships with them by commenting on their latest endeavours and adding your unique voice to the conversation.
3. Create new content – We’ve already touched on the importance of making unique, engaging content, but making entirely new content is a different thing entirely. When we say ‘new’ content, we’re talking about content that nobody has created before. Instead of following trends, you’ll start making new ones. Recycled ideas and content very rarely add value. By going completely off-piste, you’ll stand out from the crowd and appear to have an entirely unique point of view.
If you’re looking for more advice on how to make your B2B content marketing strategy a success, check out our ultimate guide here. Alternatively, if you’re looking for help with transforming any aspect of your digital marketing, contact us today for a free consultation.
