Imran Sadiq Gill Keirin - B2B Marketing Trending Toward “Inbound” Strategies

There are very few certainties in life, but one thing that we can all be sure of is that nothing stays the same. Change is inevitable, and in the technology arena, in the business world and in our personal lives, we never know what may lie around the next corner. The internet and ever-evolving modes of communication have made the world a much smaller place in recent years, and have enabled us to access information and open dialogues at the touch of a few buttons, or at the activation of our voice. 

As the latest technology applies to marketing and advertising, or more specifically, business to business marketing (B2B marketing) and business to business advertising (B2B advertising), social media, blogs and increasingly robust websites have now become the “tools of the trade.” As a result, costly and laborious mass mailings and banks of telemarketers, although not obsolete, are fading in favor of “tweets” and search engine optimization (SEO).

The Trend toward Efficiency

From the ad agency to the PR agency to the B2B internet marketing agency, no one has been spared the effects of a tightening economy. This has caused marketers to adjust their strategies and intensify their focus on making the most efficient use of their resources, and has been a catalyst in the trend toward “inbound” or “content” marketing.

Consumers and companies are constantly bombarded with ads, inquiries and information, most of which they have learned to ignore. Therefore, as opposed to wasting time, money and energy advertising to an uninterested majority, marketing strategies are being tailored toward reaching target markets and more likely prospects.

The aim of a brand or company’s inbound marketing efforts is to attract customers who are already interested in a product or service. Customers know what they want, and they now have easy access to resources that will allow them to find the best products at the most favorable prices. This is why companies that make the best use of social media, create the most informative and user-friendly websites and incorporate highly-effective search engine optimization (SEO) practices into their marketing strategies will have an advantage over the competition as we move forward in an ever-changing world.

Imran Sadiq Gill Keirin - Content Marketing for SEO, Part II

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed why quality content is important for SEO and how to use social media as a distribution channel to get your best content out to your audience. In Part 2, we’ll outline how you’re going to produce all that great content.

The first, and easiest, way to produce content for your website is to repurpose some of your existing content. 

For example, you may have an article on your website that you wrote a couple years ago and maybe that article just needs to be updated. This way, you don’t need to start from scratch.

Besides updating old articles, you can also repurpose content by converting podcasts, reports or white papers into blog posts. Say you have a white paper, for example. Maybe you can break that white paper up into ten blog posts. Genius! You can also mention in the blog post that this particular tip is from this white paper, and provide a link to download the white paper. You never know -- maybe your white papers will start getting downloaded more if you repurpose content in this way!

You also probably have content that you have that you’ve never used. Maybe you have a video on YouTube but you don’t have a link on your website to pull that video in. Or, maybe the video’s on your website but it’s not in your blog. You may have separate followings for your site and blog, so be sure to post (or link to) your best content in both.

Now, what about all the writing? Let’s say that you’ve repurposed all of your existing content and now you need some fresh content. How about starting a blog? Although blogging requires a lot of writing, it shouldn’t be hard to find guest bloggers. There are many bloggers in your industry who would be happy to write a guest blog for you in exchange for a link back to their website or blog. Now, you have free content.

You can also get your whole staff involved in writing your blog. Maybe each month, X number of people on your staff is responsible for writing one blog post. They might just enjoy it!

Need more help to produce blog posts, articles, press releases, etc.? Don’t be afraid to hire freelance writers. There are a lot of good freelance writers out there for hire. And you don’t necessarily have to pay them a lot. Find them on Elance.com, Guru.com, Craigslist, or a number of other sites that connect freelance writers with employers. You may make a good connection with a freelance writer that you can use on a regular basis.

So, start filling in your content holes. Determine what your website is missing. Is it press releases? Videos? Infographics? Podcasts? A blog? Next, determine who will write the content. You? Your staff? Freelancers? 

Get your team together. Then, create an editorial calendar for the next six to twelve months.

Make sure all content is keyword-optimized and distributed via your social media channels. Once you have good content and start distributing it, monitor your analytics. See how many people are coming to look at that content. Is your strategy working? Are your rankings going up?