4 B2B content marketing strategies that get results for firms

June 29, 2022 10:50 AM

Relationships are the key to business success.

In this digital world, however, more and more people are researching companies online. They scour your website and online reviews. Even before they speak with your firm’s business development team, they have formed their own opinions on your strengths and weaknesses.

A successful B2B marketing strategy can change that.

It seems easy at first. Your marketing team starts writing blog posts and shares that content through their social networks. Your email list grows as the team offers longer-form premium content behind a simple registration form in your blog posts and on your website. If you are doing it right, your content funnel probably looks something like this:

Then you notice that you are not converting readers into clients.

Before you scrap your hard work, let’s review four B2B content marketing strategies that can significantly increase lead generations and conversions.

Be original

The first step in creating a B2B content marketing strategy is reviewing the content already out in the world. Be careful: It’s easy to get overwhelmed.

You may find ideas for blogs, videos, infographics, social content and case studies that you want to start work on immediately. But don’t copy what your competitors are doing.

Instead, align your marketing strategy to support your business goals and needs. Find the topics that aren’t being discussed everywhere else, especially if your firm is uniquely qualified to offer expert advice.

Finding your niche is the perfect way to create unique and valuable content that increases your SEO rankings and referrals.

Map your readers’ journeys

Put yourself in your clients’ shoes. They’ve started engaging with your content. They’ve visited your website and subscribed to receive emails. But these contacts are early in their relationship with you. They aren’t ready to speak with your account managers or sign a contract.

A successful content marketing strategy builds structured “journeys” based on additional content you can offer. Nurture new contacts through email marketing workflows, also known as drip or lead nurture campaigns. While some connections are further along in the buying cycle, they are most likely still learning more about your firm.

The idea is to continue offering additional resources to your new contacts over a certain amount of time through various emails. Depending on your typical sales cycle, these workflows can span from a month to several months. A best practice is around seven touch points before a hard ask.

Offer a related premium piece of financial solutions with your first email touch between five and seven days after downloading the initial content. One week later, send another email with a more substantial piece of content, such as a recorded webinar with slides.

After another week, you might send a project case study demonstrating how your firm solved a particular accounting problem. Make sure it relates to something similar to the initial content download. If your contacts are still consuming your content at this point, they are interested in what your firm can offer them.

Don’t be afraid of the hard ask

Now is the time to optimize your content marketing strategy funnel. Don’t worry. It’s easier than you think.

Many CPA firms offer a free assessment to thank prospects for their interest in the organization. The best way to do this is to set up different landing or “thank you” pages for your email workflows. Prospects are directed to the landing page, which includes a direct download link for the content and a brief description of your free consultation or what the assessment entails.

Wording such as “Ready to talk now?” is popular for this type of page. You can describe the value of your free offer and provide a contact form on the same page. Buyers will no longer fear a call or email from your business development team — they will welcome it.

Be patient

B2B content marketing doesn’t drive new business overnight. It takes time to build a following and grow your outreach. In the accounting industry, your readers might not be your ideal clients — yet.

Many professional service firms don’t realize that many referrals come from people who aren’t paying clients. These individuals may have grown to trust an organization based on their content and thought leadership. These are “expertise-based referrals.” They are hard to beat.

You need these individuals to amplify your content so you rise in search rankings. Most accounting firms will not be able to rank on the first page of search engine results immediately. Give your content time to grow and rank higher.

One final note

B2B content marketing is more important than ever before. When done correctly, it will help push contacts through the funnel from readers to new clients.

If you follow these strategies and create content that’s valuable to your clients, you’ll see a tremendous ROI — and more qualified leads your business development team will run with.