If you aim to attract, convert, and retain customers, it is essential to offer relevant content, according to the stage of the purchase journey your customer is in. However, there is no shortage of opportunity online, since 70% of marketers actively invest in content marketing.
So, what can you do to differentiate your business? Instead of you or your team taking care of your content strategy, a good idea would be to rely on specialized agencies or tools, mainly if you sell to companies. As a result, your plan will be well constructed, which will drive results.
Would you like to get to know some B2B content marketing companies and tools? That’s what we’ll cover in this article, but at first, it is important to keep in mind what B2B content marketing is and how it differs from B2C.
What is B2B content marketing?
B2B content marketing is a way to use quality content to engage companies and develop a relationship with them, driving them to become prospects and then customers. But let’s talk about this concept a little more.
The abbreviation B2B means business-to-business and refers to a relationship between two companies. B2C, on the other hand, refers to a business-to-consumer relationship.
The differences between B2B and B2C
Selling to a company and selling to a consumer are entirely different things. Think, for example, about the relationship’s length. As fast as a consumer arrives, they can also go away and buy from your competitor.
Imagine, for example, that your company sells office supplies, like pens, pencils, highlighters, etc. Today, a consumer could buy some pens from you, and tomorrow, buy highlighters from another company.
However, if your client is a company, things happen differently. Purchases are made in large quantities after a period of analysis. In fact, that company will most likely buy from you again when they need to obtain more items, if, of course, your product or service is high-quality.
Also, when we compare the buying behavior of a company and a consumer, there are differences in decision criteria and the number of people involved in the buying process. All of this brings us to the particularities of B2B content marketing.
The B2B content marketing particularities
Consumers and companies have very different needs, so this must be considered when designing a content strategy. For example, while the user values social media relationships and recommendations from other customers, companies place a high value on numbers and statistics.
Besides that, to produce B2C content, you need to take into account the decision-maker, who will be your persona. Thus, the content must consider its needs, desires, and expectations.
This leads us to an important conclusion: it is necessary to have specialized agencies, the right tools, and technology to perform well when it comes to B2B content marketing.
What are the 5 leading B2B content marketing companies?
Content Marketing Institute
As the Content Marketing Institute itself says, its goal is to advance the practice of content marketing. On their website, there is information about various aspects of content marketing, including guidance on how to build a content strategy.
Besides, CMI has a consulting group, which can help you deal with content marketing challenges. Their mission is to advise companies and help them to understand, develop and execute compelling content strategies.
Velocity Partners
Velocity Partners, a content marketing agency, offers a series of B2B services, such as content marketing, marketing strategy and positioning, branding and design, and web development. Besides that, their blog contains information that helps not only businesses but also marketers.
Rock Content
Rock Content was founded in 2013 in Brazil, but over time it expanded its operations to Mexico and, at the end of 2019, bought the American company ScribbleLive, becoming the largest content marketing company in the Americas.
Rock Content employs over 500 people and maintains a talent network of over 80,000 creative professionals. They provide content marketing solutions, on-demand talent, professional training, and creative services to over 2,000 brands, marketers and agencies.
HubSpot
One of HubSpot’s goals is to educate their audience everything about inbound marketing, which includes SEO, social media, and copywriting, among others. But also, they are a fantastic CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool, which you can start using for free.
With HubSpot, you can manage your pipeline and have a clear view of your entire sales funnel, as well as consult customer data, which is great for sales. So, this tool is the perfect complement to a content strategy.
Ion Interactive
The Ion platform allows the production of interactive content in a simplified way. Thus, you do not need to know how to program to create, for example, quizzes, assessments, calculators, and other types of interactive content.
You may be wondering if interactive content is worth using in your strategy. So consider the following: according to the Content Experience Impact survey by Demand Metric, 96% of respondents believe that content interactivity influences the decisions of the potential customer as he goes through his purchase journey.
Thus, you can see that the Ion platform helps to increase the number of leads, as well as the ROI of the marketing department, making better use of the resources your company has.
If you build your content strategy correctly, you will get more leads, make more sales and reach a higher level of engagement. Therefore, it is a good idea to count on an agency or a tool that facilitates the work.
When developing your content strategy, remember that interactive content can improve the efficiency of your work. Since it has a greater power of engagement, it allows you to lead your B2B prospects more easily through the sales funnel, so you can achieve better results.
Did you like to get to know some B2B content marketing companies? How about reading a little more about interactive content? Check out our article where we explain 3 ways to personalize your content with interactivity!
