What’s Different About a Digital Content Marketing Strategy?

When you crafted your content marketing strategy, were you thinking digital-first?

Sure, digital assets are likely in there with a webinar, a video series or perhaps content written to link to in a nurture campaign.

But digital content can’t just be an afterthought – even in B2B. It’s got to be the foundation.

Think about your personas. Each has specific characteristics and pains that your product or service solves. We all have our own iterative buyer journey (which is why the rigid sales funnel model doesn’t work), and the online marketplace has the flexibility to guide that journey.

There’s a reason that malls these days look like the set of Dawn of the Dead. Buyers want the personalized experience that digital purchasing provides. That applies to your B2B customers as much as the folks buying Sad Keanu t-shirts.

On some level, you know this. You shop (or at least research) online for your vendors too. So, make it your priority to be a consistent resource everywhere your audience encounters you during those precious screen time hours.

Let’s Get Digital

A digital content marketing strategy is a deliberate plan to differentiate your organization with a better user experience and relevant content across digital channels. And it has big benefits that add up to revenue growth when you: 

• Enhance brand visibility and awareness
• Drive website traffic and engagement
• Build trust and credibility with your audience
• Generate high-quality leads and sales opportunities

Beyond feeding your lead pipeline, digital content delivers critical information about visitors, prospects and leads to help you refine your personas and future content strategy.

Don’t Just Flip Through the Channels

We covered the why – now we get into the how. 

How do you ensure a consistent performance across channels? And how do you ensure the user experience is great?

This is where technology comes in. I know, we’re talking about a digital content marketing strategy, but if you’re going to build an effective one, you need strong bones – namely, an optimized website and content management system (CMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) platform. 

Your audience should love your website. Yes, that means value-driven content that clearly presents your products and services as the best solution for their needs. It also means a website that’s easy to navigate and view on mobile, with a clean, friendly interface.

Your CMS should help you streamline and standardize how you deliver your content regardless of the format. If it’s integrated with your CRM, you can use it to track how your visitors and leads engage with your content. This will tell you if you’re performing well across channels such as your:

• Website
• Emails
• Content offers
• Landing pages
• Social media (and which platforms)
• Organic search

Based on your persona work, you’ll see where you’re on track and where you need to make changes to your delivery to generate more visitors and leads.

Learning how to navigate and optimize your website and tech platforms – or just keep up with improvements and changes – is difficult. Especially if you’re transitioning to a more digital focus as a B2B company. 

If that’s you, don’t waste time. Find a partner for guidance or more in-depth support to get your technology where it needs to be. 

Digital Content Beyond the Blog Post

You’ve got the user experience under control. Now let’s go back to the content and how it can reflect the digital buyer journey. 

Is all your great blog content just sitting there on your blog page? What about the leads you’re missing because they’re more likely to watch a two-minute video? 

If your content is siloed in one format, your audience may miss it (and your company). This is the case for many B2B companies, so the right digital content marketing strategy can give you a huge advantage.

A great place to start is your high-performing content. Strategically repurpose it to share it again in different formats best suited for particular channels. 

Now you’re generating even more opportunities to capture leads – plus saving other juicy topics for strategic points in your content calendar later.

Especially if your most successful content is static (think e-books and tip sheets), try pulling it into dynamic formats that play well across channels like:

• Short-format videos 
• Podcasts
• Webinars 
• Online tutorials 
• Interactive quizzes

Artificial intelligence (AI) can make this easier, particularly if you’re using HubSpot, which just rolled out some new AI tools that can help streamline content development, especially if you’re repurposing content.

SEO: It’s Complicated

Strategy is strategy, and hopefully SEO is already part of your metrics to measure content and campaign success. At minimum, you should be tracking keyword rankings and opportunities.

But changes to search and SEO best practices should inform your digital content marketing strategy as much as your personas and brand positioning. Don’t get left behind by Google updates because your content is formulaic or your headlines aren’t optimized.