Content is all the more important now than ever before. Particularly when selling to other businesses, content is one single significant pillar that can set you apart from your competition. People in the B2B space are familiar with the rising trend of content creation. Every content marketing team tries to achieve top-of-the-funnel goals like brand awareness and audience education through content.
While most of the marketing leaders acknowledge that, is everyone equipping their content marketing team with enough insight about each target industry or verticals that the company sells into? Are all messages personalized enough to gain attention naturally or do they scream for attention from the right guys? And, how well-aware are you of the changing priorities at every targeted industry?
Having in-depth knowledge of the targeted industry, emerging challenges and driving factors in the particular vertical can help to be relevant. So, what is the best way to create industry-specific content that is both relevant and personalised? The answer is much simpler than you thought.
Research!
Research can help B2B marketers in building engaging content. Believe it or not but marketers who make effort to understand their audience are the ones who can develop targeted and specific content instead of boilerplate content. Recent eMarketer shows digital B2B ad spend is up 22.6% from 2019.
This is one of the findings from 2020 B2B Benchmarks Budgets, and Trends.
The three most-cited content marketing goals achieved in the last 12 months were:
- Creating brand awareness (86%)
- Educating audience(s) (79%)
- Building credibility/trust (75%)
Below are a few ways you can go about structuring the research of your target industry with examples taken from Business Brainz’s report on the Supply chain and Logistics sector
Industry Overview
Key insights about the target industry such as overview, key geographies and industry growth feed B2B organizations with crucial information about the industry. For example, “According to Globenewswire, the global supply chain analytics market size is projected to surpass $10 billion by 2025 and the global supply chain market is projected to gather a CAGR of nearly 16% over the forecast period 2018-2025.” Content creators would then use this insight to push their content towards the right people in the targeted industry.
Industry Trends & Drivers
Factors that are influencing and driving industries are “must-know” when creating industry-specific content. For instance, “Key trends observable in the supply chain industry such as supply chain digitization, automation, big data analytics, and green initiatives.” give companies guidance towards the understanding of the direction that the industry is heading towards. Content creators can personalize their content and show that they are up to date with their target industries through actionable insights.
Industry Challenges
Challenges that companies face can help unearth the minuscule details of the ideal customer companies of your target industry. An example would be “Supply chain and logistics companies appear to be struggling when it comes to supply chain integration, digital transformation, multiple channels selling directly to consumers requiring fast last-mile delivery and quality customer services, risk management, and unforeseen delays.” This is done through thorough research as to the challenges that your ideal target accounts are facing, and which enables the structuring of your marketing efforts towards solving those problems.
Final thoughts
Content is a critical tool in targeted marketing efforts, and research contributes to meaningful discussions through content building. Secondly, research supports the development of credibility and stronger connections with the target audience. The complex nature of the B2B landscape calls for research, otherwise, marketers will find themselves in a pit where they cannot establish a meaningful relationship. In conclusion, research allows marketing teams through their content marketing initiatives with their target accounts to achieve a high level of personalisation.
Download industry intelligence report on supply chain and logistics sector