A recent report by Finite shows that B2B companies are struggling to produce content during the pandemic. The report found that expectations are high for B2B business owners when it comes to content marketing.
Yet the challenge is to generate sufficient content, reach the right readership, identify and measure achievement. Tiga UK talks about how B2B companies can alleviate content creation challenges during the pandemic by motivating staff to write thought-leadership content:
Creating an effective content marketing strategy is one of the biggest challenges today! Producing content requires creativity, and when you are expected to produce a certain amount of well-written and engaging content, it can be difficult to find inspiration – especially if you have got a looming deadline!
Writing thought leadership blog posts need to be inspiring for the audience, and you need to find a way to motivate your staff. Here are some great tips to help you with that:
1. Prefer conversational marketing
While the content they are writing is intended for use on your website or blog, your team of writers are collectively creating their own portfolio that could be useful to them somewhere else in their professional life.
2. Associate with influencers
Many writers have the fear that voicing their opinions and experiences would not be received well by an audience. It is important to remind them that no opinion is wrong! Content that is written with a real voice will inspire people, provoke conversation, and, most importantly, be valued.
3. Answer into real-time moments
Whether you mean to or not, your personality comes out in your writing, and this is a great way of connecting with your target audience. When someone truly believes in your company and everything it stands for, it will show in their writing. Help your staff regain the love for your company so it shows in their writing and they can reconnect with your target audience.
The importance of writing content
More than any other technique—consistent, engaging, and high-quality content will impact and draw the attention of your audience.
Content writing makes it possible for your brand to create cohesive pieces that will be useful for your audience and keep them coming back for more.
Consistency is one of the most important factors in determining your company’s growth and success, particularly in brand messaging. Your team should alway strive to keep up your brand messaging in their tone of voice and choice of vocabulary.
How you can incentivise internal staff to write content
1. Create a ‘most visited / read’ article of the month award
Writer’s block is a real thing, and a great way of incentivising your staff is by creating an award for them to work towards each month. This could be a voucher, a day’s paid leave, or even a physical trophy for them to keep.
2. Regularly report how the content is having an impact
Feedback is essential, and your staff will thrive from hearing positive feedback about their content. Constructive criticism will also help them fine tune their writing as time goes on.
3. Ramping up content production efforts
It can be difficult to write good content if you are not given the means to do so. Provide your staff with things that will help them produce great content such as valuable research, interview snippets, and even a budget to create amazing content.
4. Ask each staff member to write a content every week
When you have got article-after-article to write, it quickly becomes daunting. Rather than demanding content on a particular day, ask your staff to provide one piece of content each week to give them more time to create engaging and on brand content.
Of course, this should not hamper your other deadlines and deliveries. If need be, set a deadline every two or three days.
5. Create a content writing schedule for staff to adhere to
While writing requires creativity, having guidelines makes the world of difference too. Create a content writing schedule with topic ideas and lengths to help your staff.
6. Make sure staff have free time to write content
Good content writing simply cannot be achieved between other tasks, so it is imperative you give your staff some free time to sit somewhere without distractions, to write content for your website.
7. Hire a content writer to supplement
If your staff is falling behind on deadlines due to other tasks around the office, consider hiring a freelance content writer to fill in from time to time. It will help them recuperate, and also enable you to provide fresh and exciting content for your audience.
How to use SEO to drive content marketing efforts
SEO is key when writing any content. You could have the best written article in the world, but if it is not SEO friendly, it simply would not be seen on search engines like Google!
Remind your staff of the importance of SEO to rank your content and encourage them to implement it in their writing in the most natural way possible. A great tip here is to provide them with a list of keywords surrounding your industry for them to naturally include in their writing.
Knowing what people are searching for is a near impossible task. That is why you should hire an SEO professional to conduct research on keywords and phrases your target audience are using. This will help your writers improve their written content with amazing SEO.
Provide a clear goal
Writing content is much easier when you know what message you are trying to get across. For example, if you want people to download your app, you need to be naturally including this in your content. Provide your staff with a clear goal so they can successfully write engaging content that will drive sales.
With millions of articles being published every day, it is imperative your staff of writers grab the attention of your target audience. With the right tools provided, a clear goal, the use of SEO techniques, and the drive to do so, they will be able to produce regular, amazing written content for your website or blog.
Stuart Coe is the Managing Director at Tiga UK. He has over 25 years of experience within the B2B marketing sector. He has helped clients navigate B2B marketing and sales cycles. Specialising in technical and industrial sectors, Stuart has an in-depth understanding of the channel — from manufacturer and distributor to reseller and end-user.
