Digital Content – Editorial PR

30/Sep/2019

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Keeping up with the content demands of B2B consumers and partners is a major concern for decision-makers, according to a new study released last week by Episerver, which found that 84% believe that meeting digital expectations is now the single biggest “external” issue.

The ‘B2B Digital Experiences Report 2019: How Companies Are Meeting Rising Expectations’ explores the tactics and strategies being deployed by B2B companies to deliver consistent, high-quality campaigns and highlights a number of problems and challenges to overcome.

The need to provide excellent digital experiences was highlighted in a recent, separate report by Episerver, which acts a prelude to the latest exploratory research showing that 91% of B2B consumers believe that they have a better experience and think more fondly of a brand when the latter is able to publish personalised content that speaks to them.

Personalised, tailored content has been a key trend in marketing for a couple of years now, but it still remains a top priority for business-to-business organisations and will continue to shape the direction of campaigns during the next 12 months.

The study found that personalised content is the single website feature that B2Bs plan on adopting the most during the next year, with 36% saying that they plan to focus on personalisation, putting it ahead of mobile experience improvements (33%).

The emergence of cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) is making it easier for B2B brands to improve personalisation, and 82% revealed that they will use AI during the next three years to increase the quality of their digital experiences.

“Consumers expect more from our organizations every day,” Episerver’s senior director of content management strategy Deane Barker noted in a statement.

He added: “Unfortunately, the accounting department expects…well, less. Digital marketers are in a tug-of-war between rising expectations and dwindling budgets. With this report, we’ve looked at the factors pushing and pulling these teams toward their decision points. If you work in digital marketing, I promise you’ll see yourself somewhere in these results.”

Personalised content also fits neatly into the trend of one-click purchases on e-commerce sites as it helps to streamline a buyer’s journey by providing the information they need to take action and buy products and services without having to navigate elsewhere.

The previous ‘B2B Digital Experiences Report’ by Episerver found that the majority of B2B enterprises are at least using basic web personalisation but that there is significant room for improvement in terms of providing content that consumers crave to drive engagement and sales.

One in five B2Bs say that they see the growing number of digital channels they use as an opportunity for even better personalised customer experiences, and those able to act on this will see happier consumers who believe that companies actually care about their journeys with a brand.

Another report released last week by Uberflip and Heinz Marketing defined the new “marketing standard”, which is based around data and content.

It said: “The new standard is centered around a buyer experience that’s built around ease of access and discovery, frictionless consumption, personalized and relevant suggestions, and curated engagement paths – a buyer experience designed to delight, engage, enable, and empower better decisions.”

Aimee

18/Dec/2017

Christmas is almost here, and marketing teams across the globe are ramping up their marketing efforts to connect with customers over the festive period. With this in mind, Adext, an AI ad enterprise, has published a series of innovative and creative tips and strategies to help brands drive engagement during the next two weeks.

First, Adext recommends using every content marketing avenue available to inform, educate and entertain in the run-up to Christmas. The team at Adext believe any medium or format can underpin festive campaigns, from infographics and videos to podcasts and e-books, if it provides some additional value to the end reader or viewer.

It is obviously best to tailor creative content towards the Christmas theme, so try to think of ways that a product or service could help a consumer on the big day. Including a call to action at the end of an article or blog piece that clicks through to a product can also drive sales. Finally, optimising content for search engines and publishing it across social media will maximise the reach of high-quality resources.

Digital marketing agency PMX Agency has also outlined a few tactics and recommendations to help smaller and medium-sized brands to remain competitive during a time when larger online behemoths such as Amazon usually garner the greatest amount of mindshare with consumers eager for tech bargains.

Toni Bix, Group Director at PMX Agency, again notes that longer forms of editorial content are best, as more than two-thirds of search traffic is long-tail, which is defined as keyword phrases with three or more words. However, many brands still optimise content for solitary keywords or very short phrases. Bix recommends thinking about phrases that consumers may use during the festive period, such as searching for gift ideas or exploring products.

Providing a rich brand experience on websites is also important, and consumers are eager for compelling storytelling around the products and services they are looking for. To supplement these with creative articles, brands can also publish a few “how to” pieces and FAQs to answer questions consumers are likely to be asking, which will increase trust.

Perhaps most importantly, brands should attempt to make better use of data and analytics to provide the content consumers not only expect but demand in the digital age. A report published by L2 Inc this week found many brands still fail to collect data points, including age, gender and birthday, which is leading to irrelevant content and ads.

L2 Vice President of Intelligence Evan Neufeld said: “Very few brands effectively deploy data on a consistent basis. The truth is that brands may never achieve the perfect system for storing and using consumer data, but they cannot let perfect be the enemy of good. Incremental data improvements pay major dividends in terms of personalized marketing and meeting the rising tide of consumer expectations.”

By following these trends and tactics, brands and marketers can not only improve their campaigns for Christmas but also give themselves a head start on the competition as they look to 2018 and a new year of content strategies.

Annie

15/Aug/2016

In a recent publication by CMI, it was reported just 34 per cent of both B2C and B2B brands rate their content marketing as effective. In fact, the 2016 Content Marketing Benchmark report revealed that producing engaging content for lead generation and sales was a top challenge of 60 per cent of firms. However, the figures suggest two fundamental mistakes that could be undermining strategies – the first being that many firms invest in content simply to produce material that is clicked to generate sales. Secondly, they prioritise any rise in sales and leads over the process of earning trust, familiarity and relationships.

On average, consumers come across around 285 pieces of content every day. According to Lifehack, this material is often served to consumers as a way to create action, whether that’s to collect data or gain a sale. However, the average consumer does not follow a linear route with content and, therefore, there is no guaranteed sale.

One of the biggest mistakes brands make when it comes to content marketing is creating content with the sole purpose of generating sales and leads. While strategists may have invested time and effort on the creation, distribution and sharing of material, many will have neglected remembering that content needs to be centred on its target audience. To correctly engage with people, marketers need to understand the customer journey and the experience – and they can do this by following four key phases.

Firstly, it’s vital to uncover people’s journeys. This can be achieved by understanding the motivations behind consumers’ actions. The various characteristics of people’s personas must be identified, as they will help drive the type of content to be created. Secondly, a customer’s experience must be properly mapped from beginning to end. Every interaction should be included, with positive outcomes being used towards creating good content.

The third phase is to chart content to ensure it serves informational, emotional and functional needs throughout. As content is aligned to the journey, it is important to match solutions to problems instead of focusing on services and products. Consumers rarely know the exact product they want; rather, they know their end goal and need a way to achieve it.

Finally, it’s important to tell the story correctly, using a storyboard to include all the previous phase elements into a cohesive journey. The resulting content needs to connect everything between a business, brand, customer and product or service benefits. In addition, it must be remembered that consumers often prefer different channels, so it’s important to use various platforms to connect with different audiences.

Overall, organisations must ensure they’re focused on creating content full of value for their consumers, and not simply pushing products and services upon people. It’s best to prioritise answering a problem instead of simply promoting the generation of sales and leads. In addition, by offering solutions to a target audience’s issues, brands will not only boost sales but also nurture the relationships and emotional ties between their business and its consumers.

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Personalised content the path to better digital experiences for B2Bs

Marketing experts provide tips and tactics for Christmas content

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