Done well, content marketing can be a powerful weapon in the B2B marketer's arsenal, helping to generate leads, nurture them, and convert them into customers. Done badly, it's ineffective and a waste of time and other precious marketing resources.
First and foremost, you'll need to know whom you're targeting: Who are your B2B buyer personas? Second, you'll need to meet them where they are—in the appropriate stage of the buying cycle.
Depending on where your intended target audiences are in the purchase funnel, content marketing needs to provide content tailored to meet that audience's informational needs.
Someone at the top of the funnel, in the awareness stage, is in the process of becoming informed. They'll need educational content such as blog posts and guest articles, which are how you can begin to get on their radar.
Whereas someone at the bottom of the funnel, in the purchase stage, has already gone through the awareness and evaluation stage and is now about to make a final decision.
At that point (and probably earlier in the funnel, during the evaluation stage) it would make sense to get case studies about your service or product into their hands.
For more about the B2B content marketing funnel, including some best-practices, check out the following infographic by campaign management and data governance tool UTM.io:
