With Marketing budgets being tight and ROI more important then ever, there’s a major focus to get the most bang for the buck.  Decisions to drop high expense/low return tactics such as paying for exhibitor booths or sponsorships are becoming more common in exchange for speaking at events and creating more content to be distributed online.  As companies in the B2B space look at social media and content marketing, there are many reasons to build a strong content marketing strategy.

Anywhere by anyone at any time

One of the top reasons content marketing is so effective is that it can be distributed anywhere by anyone at any time.  Great content has the potential to be shared by thousands of people over various networks when THEY need it.  It’s not a point-in-time experience shared by only a few.  Helpful content gets your customers’ attention.  Just a few well-connected customers can then share that information with their networks and word-of-mouth spreads overnight.  In addition, people trust information shared by someone they know much more then an unsolicited ad or brochure.

Thought Leadership

The more a company can educate and help customers and prospects, the better.  When speaking at events, take the time to upload your presentations online where people can go back to them and share them.  Address key pain points your customers face on your blog and provide useful advice that doesn’t include your product or service as the answer for everything.  Everyone knows the business decision process for B2B is much longer so building trust as a thought leader and advisor pays huge dividends when one of your followers is ready to make a buy decision.

Stronger Relationships

One of the biggest differences between B2B and B2C is that a B2C transaction tends to be a one-and-done experience.  In B2B, the relationships last longer and the parties turn into strong business partners when it’s done right.  Your customers don’t want to hear from your Sales people all of the time but they do want to learn from your expertise.  Providing great educational content via ebooks, webinars, blog posts and newsletters allows you to continue to build strong relationships with your customers without them feeling bothered or pressured.

Having a great content marketing strategy in place is key to creating new customers and building stronger relationships with current customers.  Taking the time to create helpful and timely content on a consistent basis on a variety of platforms can be an extremely effective and rewarding use of resources.  How is your company using and benefiting from content marketing?

In January this year, I did a post called “B2B Is Not Just The Big Guys” based on a post from Chris Brogan around B2B vs B2C.  The whole point I made in my comment on the post was that most people automatically think of huge enterprise companies when they hear “B2B” and that’s just not the case.  Granted, that’s where the big money is scored but when you look at large corporations as a percentage of all businesses out there, they are less then 1%.  That’s not a typo.

If you check out the US Office of Advocacy website, they define small firms as companies with 500 employees or less. 

Here’s some stats on small business in the US:

• In 2008, they represented 99.9 percent of the 29.6 million businesses
• Employ just over half of all private sector employees
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll
• Have generated 64% of net new jobs over the past 15 years
• Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP)

Only 18,000 of the 29.6 million businesses were large businesses.

As you can see, the vast majority of B2B is comprised of small businesses and entrepreneurs that are out there looking for products and services to help their business and we believe a majority of those professionals are touched and reached via social media just as in B2C. They don’t have an RFP process or a long buying cycle and they want to know about the quality of the solution from other customers via ratings and reviews without going through the solution provider.  They also want to be educated but not led by the solution provider.

We’d love to hear from others that cater to small businesses and entrepreneurs in B2B. Please tell us what you think.

(Photo by tedreese via Flickr – Kids at Work 2007 091)

Contests are a great way to promote your B2B brand. If you are willing to look around, contests of all genres and sizes are on the web, with typically little to no annoying requirements for entry. Entering contests is a great business venture. It gives you the opportunity to try your company out against competitors. You can see who your competition is and what they are doing. You’ll learn how to improve your product against competitors, and you will get pain free company promotion.

Winning a contest, or placing in one, make great bragging rights. Every customer wants to hear that their company of choice is the best, and these simple web entry contests can help you get that. Sometimes these contests will also give you the opportunity to include you customers by asking them to vote for you. It’s marketing, PR, branding and customer relationship building all rolled into one.  If nothing else, look for contest that provide financial incentive for the purpose of helping your company grow.

We recommend keeping track of contests, even if your company isn’t ready to enter them. Start a spreadsheet and spend a little time each week researching what contests are going on. Keep track of the information and sign up for emails, maybe next year your company will be ready for it.

Only enter contests that are relevant to your business, and be careful not to overdo it. Analyze the contests before entering them. You don’t need to be in every single one. Of course, as Mom and Dad always told you, if you don’t win its not the end of the world. Take losing as a business learning experience. Make improvements based on the companies you saw rank in the top, then come back and try again.

(Photo fly (relay race anchormen part 3) by Shenghung Lin)

We are very happy to let you know that FYIndOut blog posts are now on the B2B Marketing Zone. Tom Pick and Tony Karrer’s newest topic hub for B2B marketing features the best information in B2B marketing from all over the web in one place. It’s a great resource, and we’re honored to be a part of it.

Check out FYIndOut with numerous other top ranked information blogs for your reading pleasure on the B2B Marketing Zone. Then let Pick and Karrer know about the B2B blogs you love, and help the wealth of B2B knowledge on the B2B Marketing Zone keep growing.

Web Market Central blog author Tom Pick and eLearning Technology blog author Tony Karrer have joined together to start a new site for their collection, the B2B Marketing Zone.

The B2B Marketing Zone works as a topic hub bringing together blog posts and articles on B2B marketing from around the web. A broad range of keywords drive content to the site, and are segmented under five categories from concepts to companies.

In addition to their keyword driven content, Pick and Karrer look for and request quality content from their users. Many users have already given their koodos to Pick and Karrer for the site and offered advice on where to find content they love via comments.

The B2B Marketing Zone offers two subscription options via email or reader. The “full” feed brings in all content on the topic, while the “best of” feed brings in top ranked articles and post updates.

Users also have the option of creating a widget for their site based on keywords or searches, and/or getting a rock star badge (as shown) for their blog or site to boast their content.

The B2B Marketing Zone is a great way to get aggregated information from the best sources with the least hassle. Their interface is easy to navigate and right on target in a world of too much information spread out in too many places.

We wish Tom and Tony the best with the new site.

Browse My Stuff, a topic hub creation site, powers the B2B Marketing Zone.