What is a B2B content marketing strategy?
A B2B content marketing strategy refers to the documented plan formulated by marketers for using content (written, video, audio, or other formats) to promote a brand’s products and services.
What’s the difference between B2B and B2C content marketing?
There is a school of thought which believes that all content — whether it's B2B or B2C – is written 'for people', and should therefore share exactly the same content marketing strategy practices. But this isn’t entirely true, and most marketing experts agree.
B2B and B2C content marketing differ in a few major ways:
1. Audience motivation
B2C audiences are often motivated by their needs, desires, and impulses. For B2B buyers, while there is a degree of emotional motivation, most companies rely on data and logic when they're making a final decision on whether to purchase.
2. Length of the sales cycle
The B2B sales cycle and content marketing funnel are more complicated and drawn out than the average B2C cycle.
For most consumers, it’s as easy as "see it → like it → buy it".
But with B2B products and services often proving far more expensive — and because potential customers often need to convince several stakeholders before a purchase is made — B2B sales can take several months, or even longer.
3. Investment
B2B content can often take longer to create and this can mean that more financial, time, and resource investment needs to be injected into the process.
For example, B2B content creation can include items of longer-form content such as white papers and reports.
The nature of B2B industries can also require more technical or specialist writers to work on the content due to the detailed, niche nature of the subject matter.
Both of these instances can mean that B2B content creation can ultimately cost organizations more (per item) compared to B2C content creation.