Expert Insight: How Marketers Place B2B Content in Front of Their Target Audience

Marketers spend an ample amount of time ensuring that their B2B content makes it in front of prospects and existing customers, but how are they really coming across it? Clutch conducted a survey and discovered that 87 percent of people are now finding relevant content via search engines. This was followed by social media (85 percent) and company websites (75 percent). To learn more about why this was the case, we spoke to Grayson Kemper, Senior Content Developer at Clutch.

85% of respondents say they are now finding business-related content via social media. Do you see this number increasing or decreasing in the near future?

“It’s tough to say definitively since this statistic can really depend on individual social media preferences. I’m interested to see if the number remains similar to the number who find content through search, though. Search is increasingly a channel that businesses rely on to find solutions to their issues and concerns, and as a result, engage with business content.”

87% of respondents are still finding business-related content via search engines. What can marketers be doing to boost their SEO?

“That is a loaded question. Google takes hundreds of things into account to calculate their search rankings, so it’s tough to identify specific SEO services all marketers should invest in.

One SEO service that you certainly need to consider is producing content optimized to engage your target customers. High-quality content earns traffic and backlinks, which helps your search ranking. This, in turn, boosts visibility and increases organic traffic. It also produces positive brand impressions and drives further commercial interest in your company.

That being said, other factors can come into play. For example, if your site is outdated (site speed is slow or you don’t have an HTTPS certificate), your SEO suffers.

Long story short, SEO is a combination of efforts and techniques that work to improve your site’s search ranking. I encourage all companies that operate online to research the factors that go into a site’s search ranking and work to optimize their site according to those.”

Facebook, in particular, was a go-to resource for business content among B2B audiences. Why do you think this is the case, vs. platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.?

“Looking back on this, I think this may have been slightly misworded. I was essentially making the point that audiences are using the most frequented online destinations (search engines, social networks) to consume business content, which is what our survey reported.”

75% of respondents still encountered business content online through a company’s website. How can marketers optimize their website content to appeal to new prospects?

“This is a good question and something that marketers need to understand.

To engage new prospects, make sure your website includes content that directly addresses the concerns of customers that are likely interacting with your brand for the first time.

This can take the form of a landing page (think “Our Services” page) or a “What We Do” section on your About page that explains your core services and how they work to benefit your clients. Each of these pages should have internal, directional links that ultimately lead to a conversion or contact page.

So, on your About pages, link to your case studies to provide an illustration of the type of impact your services can have. Then, on your case studies, provide a call-to-action to direct visitors to a page where they can inquire about your products and services.”

What was the most interesting statistic/finding in the report to you?

“I think the most surprising statistic is the amount of people who value content marketing. This is actually a positive reflection of businesses’ marketing efforts overall – it means that the content that they produce is mostly valued by its consumers.

The silver lining here, of course, is that they need to encounter and engage with content in order to have an opinion of it. It could just be the case that the content that consumers are encountering through search/social is simply the most high-quality out there, given that it’s been shared and/or ranks well for commercial queries.”

ABOUT GRAYSON KEMPER

Grayson Kemper is a Senior Content Developer at Clutch, a B2B research and reviews firm based in Washington, DC. He specializes in SEO research.