How to Create, Earn, Share and Spread your Brand Messaging

B2B content marketing is the cornerstone of a brand’s online presence.

More than just being a vehicle for sharing your brand’s messaging, though, content marketing can be -- and is -- an effective way to meet your organization’s bottom-line goals.

With great content, you can attract new investors and customers, nurture cold leads and convert warm ones. 

Without it, your organization will become a ghost -- something that’s there, but not seen.

I recently talked about the difference between B2C and B2B content marketing, how to create content that effectively generates leads and how to develop content marketing skills with Christopher Null of Null Media.

Coming from a journalism background, Christopher is a 20-year veteran of magazine and internet trade, working with big names like Yahoo!, Intuit, McGraw Hill and other large companies in publishing and news media.

But while reporting is more about looking for the truth and sharing facts, content marketing requires you to have a clearly detailed end destination and objective in mind and work towards that. 

The differences between a B2C and B2B content marketing strategy

The answer to “what is content marketing?” can often be defined by the industry, the product being marketed, and the audience you are speaking to. 

In other words, it’s defined by the organization itself.

That being said, both B2C and B2B content marketers need to create a robust strategy with well-defined goals.

Your content marketing strategy also needs to address every part of the content marketing funnel. Top funnel content is typically more introductory in nature, while bottom funnel content is toplines information that drives conversions.

A good content marketing consultant executes on your content marketing strategy, bringing a pitch or outline to life and connecting you with your ideal audience. 

On the other hand, a digital marketing consultant like me works closely with decision makers and brand stakeholders to build strategies for owned, shared, and earned media outreach - as well as a methodology for how to measure the ROI of your content marketing program. 

Owned Media

While they do have clear differences, both B2C and B2B content marketing strategies should start with a plan for creating owned media. This will be the series of blog posts, technical guides, whitepapers, checklists, and product reviews that will live on your own website. Hence the term, owned media.

Consumer-facing organizations tend to produce more superficial content, but it still needs to be vibrantly written and come off the page to capture the attention of readers.

B2B content marketing is usually more research-focused, but it still needs to be compelling. Even though it’s written for a niche audience, B2B content should be nothing less than dead-on accurate with useful information  detailed specs.

Some brands overlook the importance of their owned content marketing channel. But I’ve seen multiple companies rapidly expand using smart growth marketing strategies and by leveraging SEO content. 

Earned Media

Earned media is the union of content marketing and digital PR.

For B2B organizations, there will again be a lot of research needed to understand what you want to get across and who your audience is. 

“It may be so narrow that you create content that’s only int...