Page 20 - AeM_March_2020

BEST
PRACTICES
&
STRATEGIES

Strategic B2B Content Marketing –

step by step

The Content Marketing Institute showed in a study in Defining goals is very important as they form the basis
2018 that 91% of all marketing experts who work in the for any content that the company produces. Content
B2B area use content marketing to reach their that aims to acquire new leads, for example, is
prospects and customers. However, while the number fundamentally different from content that should help to
of those who conduct content marketing is high, the increase brand awareness. Once you have created and
number of those who pursue a strategic approach is defined your goals, the next step follows.
very small: only a little more than a third of the
companies that use content marketing document the Step 2: define the KPIs
development and track numbers and statistics. This
shows that there is obviously a discrepancy between As the use of different technologies in marketing
using content marketing and pursuing a specific increases, so does the amount of data and statistics
content marketing strategy. available, and there seem to be endless ways to track
KPIs.
But how do you start with strategic content marketing?
Which KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are useful First, you should be able to distinguish between trivial
and should be measured, and how can content be used and significant key figures.
to accompany prospective customers during the
individual steps of the customer journey? Trivial indicators are e.g. the number of Facebook fans
or page views of a blog article. These numbers are
Step 1: set goals trivial in the sense that they show how many people
can be reached, but they say nothing about how your
Before defining a content marketing strategy, it is content is perceived - e.g. whether someone has
particularly important to define the strategic goals that actually read your Facebook post or blog article.
are to be achieved first, such as:
KPIs that provide information about the number of
• Brand awareness interactions are significantly more significant. They help
• Lead generation to evaluate the effectiveness of your content marketing
• Reputation and provide information on whether the recipients really
• Range dealt with your content. In the case of a Facebook post,
the number of likes or comments is a good indicator of
• Sales the level of awareness, for a blog article these are the
• Customer service social shares or comments.
• Employer branding

March 2020: Content Marketing: authenticity, transparency & quality instead of keyword battle 20