9 Best Types of Content Marketing for B2B Brands

Creating Content on Laptop

More and more businesses are leveraging different types of content marketing to help support consumers through the buying journey from awareness to purchase. 

But what are the best types of content marketing for your business? And how can they help build your customer base?

At Rapport Digital, we’ve brought together a list of 9 key B2B content marketing ideas to help you boss your brand strategy.

Top types of content marketing for B2B brands

1. Blog

Blogs are a core part of any B2B content marketing strategy. It’s important when brainstorming and creating content for your blog, that you think about what you want your audience to take from your content.

This is where the buyer’s journey comes to the fore. Think about separating blog ideas into the three categories of the journey, so you can be sure you’re covering every step of the purchasing funnel.

Optimising your blog well can also have a huge impact on that initial awareness element. There’s no hard and fast rule on blogging when it comes to word count and subject matter, but it’s important to have a clear focus on the keywords you want to target. In order to get the most out of your business blog, you should be posting regularly and varying the type of posts you publish to keep your audience interested.

Popular blog types include:

  • Listicles: this is when you break down a topic into easy-to-digest, numbered points (like this post for example).
  • How to: generally, these pieces will map out and explain a complicated process in simple terms for your audience.
  • Guides: the more in-depth the better – when completing a guide, it’s best to show that you are an expert in that subject.
  • Answering a question: popular SEO tools and question platforms like Quora are great for finding out what people in your sector want to know. You can then take those questions and answer them, positioning your blog as a helpful resource.

2. Infographics

While they are part of the blogging sphere, we felt infographics deserved their own heading. Easily shareable on social media, infographics are essentially visual representations of information. They contain images or graphics and short pieces of text to summarise a topic in a succinct way.

Infographics are therefore one of the best types of content marketing for presenting statistics, testimonials, quotes, fun facts and FAQ pieces.

3. Emails

We all know the importance of email marketing in the B2C realm, but did you know that 87% of businesses are utilising email marketing in their B2B campaigns too?  In fact, they can be highly effective when trying to reach corporate customers.

Adding newsletter sign-up boxes to your website, blog or basket page can help build your subscriber list. The key to email marketing now is leading your prospect list through that customer buying journey with well thought-out, targeted content.

Providing informational blog content, introductions to new products, promotional offers and reporting business news, can help build stronger relationships with prospective clients.

Once you’ve built that trust and they consider you an authority in your niche, it will be much easier to move people from the consideration stage to the decision phase. Moreover, strong email content keeps you front of mind and can help turn one-time contacts into repeat clients.

4. eBooks

eBooks are a great way to give your audience an all-encompassing view of one area of your industry. Much the same as blogs, they can also help prove that you are a reliable source of knowledge in that sphere. However, as long form content, they’re generally more detailed and take an in-depth approach to exploring specific topics.

This type of content marketing is ideal for B2B brands, as it’s relatively easy to create and distribute. Plus, it can be used as gated content to gain more email subscribers.

5. Case studies

Case studies also help to build credibility. This is your opportunity to show prospective clients a detailed view of how you helped a client with a specific issue. Great case studies outline what problems the client was facing, the steps you took to tackle the issue and the end result of your work.

The best way to build up a strong portfolio of case studies is to send a survey out to your existing customers asking about their experience with your brand. Ask them questions about their buying journey and allow them to sing your praises. A perfect place to start is with the clients you’ve served the longest. You can also ask for a testimonial as part of your offboarding process after completing a one-time project.

6. Webinars

A good B2B content marketing strategy doesn’t always have involve winning the battle for attention in your client’s inbox. While emails are great way to reach your audience, they’re also a one-way street in terms of communication. You’re talking to your clients rather than with them.   

With B2B webinars, on the other hand, you can open up the lines of dialogue with your consumers. Talk to them about your business and try to get to the bottom of their pain points and requirements. A strong webinar session also allows your customers to ask questions about your offering – whether it’s via live chat or Zoom. This makes it one of the best types of content marketing for converting prospects.

7.  Videos

While we’re on the subject of multimedia types of content marketing, don’t be afraid to leverage video in your B2B marketing strategy. The exponential growth of platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok has given added credence to the value of video content.

You can think of videos like another version of your blog, creating informative content with explanations of your products or services, how to guides and customer testimonials. These can then be shared on social media or embedded into blog posts and email newsletters to increase your audience engagement.

8. White Papers

Moving back to the written word for a moment, white papers can also be an effective part of a B2B content marketing plan. But what exactly are white papers?

Essentially, they are written reports which go into detail about a specific service or product you offer, or to summarise research findings. White papers can be sent to customers to help them further understand what you offer or to keep them up to date with new data that’s relevant to them. Like eBooks, they can also be added to your website as gated content to boost your mailing list.

9. Podcasts

Much the same as webinars and videos, podcasts are another innovative way to reach a wider audience. They’re not for everyone, but more and more brands are turning to business podcasts as a useful outreach tool. In particular, they’re great for building authority as a thought leader, which is key for service-based businesses.

How can Rapport Digital help?

As you can see, there are a plethora of options when it comes to picking the best types of content marketing for your B2B business. But choosing which ones to go for doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

As an experienced content marketing agency for accountants and accounting firms, Rapport Digital can help develop a strategy that fits your audience and goals. We can also design white papers, eBooks, newsletters and more, so you can wow your current customers and start reaching a whole lot more!

Feeling inspired?

If you’d like to discuss how to improve the ways in which your business does social media, or get some help to do it better, please get in touch at:

hello@rapportdigital.com