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6 ways to strengthen your content marketing in 2019

Strong and toned trainer climbing over a wall

It’s nearing the end of February and that new year resolution to get fit is starting to fizzle. But the year is still young and it’s not too late to start planning your next content marketing move. Here are six handy tips to help flex your content marketing muscles.

Experience tells me it’s likely that your B2B marketing efforts encompass some form of content marketing. The right mix of blog posts, articles, videos and social media campaigns contribute to a successful content marketing strategy that pays itself off in dividends. To stay in the race amongst this rapidly moving digital climate, here are six useful concepts to leverage your content marketing in 2019.

1. Ask the right questions

Too many marketers are creating content for content’s sake. It’s not entirely their fault. After all, content is king. If you fall into this category, perhaps it’s time to change tactic. Harvard Business Review recommends asking yourself these four important questions when formulating a content strategy.

2. Deliver the right content at the right time

While it may be tempting to publish blog posts, articles and LinkedIn posts in spades, successful marketing is about getting the right message to the right person at the right time. This means that you need to customize content for each stage in your funnel or customer journey.

3. Have a concrete content plan

We all know running around like a headless chicken often gets us nowhere and this shows in the numbers. 65% of the most successful content marketers have a documented strategy compared with only 14% of the least successful.

So, having a concrete content plan is essential – write it down, map it out, and know exactly what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and who you’re doing it for. Ensure everyone involved has access to your plan, including clear guidance on writing style, posting frequency, visual aspects, and so on.

Additionally, if you’re not using pillars and topic clusters yet, add it to your plan immediately. This approach addresses the changing way search engines rank content and how people find it.

4. Mix it up

Variety is key. Much like a well-balanced diet includes foods from all of the food groups, mixing up the type of content will improve the health and longevity of your content marketing strategy.

Are you relying heavily on just one type of content? Well this approach doesn’t really work. Blog output by brands has increased over 800% in the past five years, yet organic social share of blogs has decreased by 89%. Blogging and sharing on social media alone will not make you stand out, spread awareness, or generate traffic to your website. You’ve got to mix it up.

5. Take a human approach

Taking the time to understand human behavior in the context of content marketing can go a long way. The Fogg Behavior Model, for example, states that motivation, ability, and trigger must occur at the same time for someone to take action. Miss just one – or even simply, not enough of one – and your content won’t convert.

In Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion, social proof is defined as people doing what they observe other people doing. It’s a principle that’s based on the idea of safety in numbers. To illustrate this, the number of subscribers, famous clients and social media engagement has been shown to have a large influence on how we interact.

6. Find a savvy copywriter

I’ve been working with Denmark-based B2B companies for just over a year and while it’s been fun practicing my Danish in some meetings, it is evident that English-language copywriting is a must-have – especially for those companies with a global interface. Finding a good copywriter to write engaging and targeted content is an essential part of your content marketing strategy.

This post is based on an original post by Sujan Patel.

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Pha Khem

My career moves to date have taken me from my home town Melbourne, to London and finally to Copenhagen where I work as a copywriter and project manager for cylindr. I’ve worked in both the public and private sector, quite often capitalizing on my communication skills. My interests lie in public health, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. As a qualified dietitian, I enjoy working with food chemistry and human physiology yet can lend a hand with writing highly technical copy for a wide mix of industries.