Content that Converts: A Complete Guide to B2B Content Marketing with Smartcore

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the art of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content that educates, informs, and entertains. It involves delivering timely information that attracts, resonates, and retains your defined audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action. It can take on many formats and each serves a unique purpose and caters to different industry needs, business goals, and audience preferences. Thus, it’s essential for B2B marketers to diversify their content marketing strategies to effectively engage their target market.

Want to know what sets Smartcore? Our invaluable first-party data, including 400,000+ ingredients buyers in key global markets, our data-driven insights, and our specialised digital content channels in the B2B food and nutrition industry. Explore our smarter digital products and packages, custom-created to help you boost your brand awareness, generate leads, and establish thought leadership in the industry. 

Given the competitive nature of the market and vast amount of content available online, it’s crucial to have an effective strategy to stand out. One such strategy is content marketing—it helps businesses attract potential customers, build lasting relationships, and achieve their goals. Other benefits include:

1. Building brand awareness and thought leadership
2. Generating leads and nurturing prospects
3. Establishing trust and credibility with your audience
4. Enhancing customer retention and loyalty
5. Boosting website traffic and SEO ranking

Boosting brand awareness through content marketing involves creating and sharing content that increases your visibility and recognition in your industry. Here’s how to effectively enhance your brand’s presence:

1. Maintain consistent branding

● Develop a brand voice: Ensure that all your content reflects your brand’s identity and messaging. This helps create a strong and recognisable brand presence across all channels.

2. Create engaging and shareable content

● Produce high-quality content: Craft content that is informative and relevant to your target audience. Ensure it’s written to resonate with a broad range of readers, increasing its likelihood of being shared.

● Utilise diverse content formats: Use various forms such as blog posts, banners, infographics, and videos to suit different audience preferences and broaden your content’s reach.

3. Leverage social media and partnerships

● Promote across social media: Share your content on social media platforms to extend your reach and engage potential customers. Make sure your content is tailored for each platform to maximise its impact.

● Form strategic partnerships: Collaborate with industry experts and content platforms to introduce your brand to new audiences.

● Run paid campaigns: Implement brand awareness campaigns to amplify your message and reach a wider audience, potentially including paid promotions if budget allows.

Would you like to boost your brand awareness through content? View our Email Newsletter Advertising. Ingredient buyers and professionals rely on our newsletters as their valued source of information about the food and nutrition industry. With a sponsored article in our newsletter, you can share your information with over 151,000 engaged subscribers.

Effective lead generation through content marketing focuses on attracting and converting potential customers, and gated content is one of the most powerful ways to do so. Here’s how to optimise your strategy to generate qualified leads:

1. Attract leads with your valuable content

● Target the right audience: Identify your ideal customer profile. Then create content that addresses their pain points and interests, using detailed keyword research to align with their search behaviour. 

● Diversify content formats: Utilise a range of formats such as blog posts, infographics, eBooks, webinars, and videos to cater to different preferences and learning styles.

● Offer gated content: Provide resources such as whitepapers, research reports, and exclusive guides in exchange for contact information, helping you to generate qualified leads.

2. Convert interest into action

● Have clear CTAs and targeted landing pages: Encourage readers to visit other landing pages, download assets, or contact your team. Similarly, create dedicated landing pages for specific content pieces with straightforward messaging and opt-in forms to capture leads.

● Nurture leads with email marketing: Implement automated email sequences based on your leads’ behaviour, delivering personalised content to guide them towards conversion.

● Track and analyse performance: Check key metrics such as traffic sources, lead generation rates, and conversion rates to refine your strategy and optimise ROI.

Interested in a smarter (and hassle-free) solution to generate excellent-quality leads for your business? Check out our Lead Generation Package. It enables you to turn your content into lead magnets by gating it on custom landing pages. We promote it for you, ensuring that it reaches your target audience and generates engaged GDPR-compliant leads.

Establishing thought leadership goes involves positioning your brand as an authority and influencer in your industry. Here’s how to achieve this through content marketing:

1. Share your expertise and insights

● Focus on data-driven content: Produce research-based and insightful articles that highlight your expertise and offer perspectives on industry trends.

● Publish consistently: Keep a regular content schedule to stay relevant and top-of-mind with your audience, building a reputation as a reliable source of information.

● Collaborate with thought leaders: Partner with other industry experts, specialised content channels, and in webinars in your industry to co-create content and share your message, enhancing your credibility and reach.

2. Amplify your reach and impact

● Promote your content: Utilise social media, email marketing, and paid advertising to broaden your content’s reach and connect with your audience.

● Host webinars and speak at events: Engage directly with your audience through webinars and industry shows, sharing your insights and building connections with potential clients and partners.

● Use analytical tools: Measure content performance to continually improve your thought leadership efforts.

Are you interested in creating and sharing impactful content that resonates with your target audience? Our Custom Content Production is your solution. Whether it’s articles, interviews, infographics, reports, or whitepapers that differentiates you from competitors, we can deliver it well, seamlessly integrated alongside our editorial content on Ingredients Network, Fi Global Insights or Vitafoods Insights and promoted on our leading social media channels.

1. Understand your target audience’s pain points, preferences, and behaviours to create and provide relevant content.
2. Develop a content calendar that is aligned with your business goals and industry interests and trends.
3. Focus on delivering high-quality, engaging content consistently to build trust and authority.
4. Incorporate targeted keywords and optimise for search engines to improve your online rankings.
5. Use a combination of organic tactics and paid advertising to expand your content reach and engagement.

Content marketing remains an indispensable tool for driving digital marketing and business success. With a strong content marketing strategy, you can elevate your brand awareness, engage your ideal audience generate leads, and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. 

Would you like to partner with us to transform your content into a valuable driver for your company’s growth and success? Explore our solution for custom content production if you’re looking for help creating the most in-demand content types; our lead generation package to generate leads from your valuable content; and our email newsletter advertising option to promote your sponsored article to our engaged subscribers, your target audience.

Browse through this success story featuring our client, IMCD Food & Nutrition. Learn about their digital marketing campaign with us to achieve brand awareness and thought leadership with an online interview and a sponsored article. If you’d like to partner with us to elevate your content marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Contact us today to learn more about the smarter content marketing solutions we offer and the challenges we can address for your brand.