In today's fast-paced digital landscape, content marketing has become a crucial strategy for businesses in all industries. In fact, a recent survey found that 82 per cent of marketers are using content marketing to enhance brand visibility and engage with their target audience.
When it comes to IT companies, a well-executed content marketing plan not only positions you as a thought leader in the tech space, it can also help build trust and convert prospects into loyal customers.
In this blog, we'll explore the benefits of a robust content marketing strategy for your IT business, providing actionable insights to help you maximise your online presence and bolster your brand. Stay tuned for top takeaways and expert tips to supercharge your content marketing efforts.
Highlight your industry experience
Content marketing is a powerful tool for demonstrating your IT brand's expertise and knowledge of the industry. In fact, SEMRush data shows that paid ads and social media account for less than 10 per cent of B2B website traffic, leads, or sales, and even for ecommerce, the number is less than 20 per cent.
This underscores the importance of leveraging informative, engaging content to showcase your brand's proficiency in diverse IT domains. Business consumers are not convinced to buy through simple advertising when it comes to more complicated topics - they want to read and understand more about what they are purchasing.
Various types of content, such as blog posts, white papers, case studies, webinars, and infographics, can be leveraged to illustrate your brand's proficiency in diverse IT domains.
For instance, consider writing in-depth blog posts that tackle complex industry topics, or create case studies that demonstrate real-life solutions your company has implemented for clients.
Webinars allow you to share your expertise and interact with your audience directly, while infographics provide a visually appealing and easily digestible format to present complex data.
By incorporating a mix of these content types into your marketing strategy, you'll effectively showcase your industry experience and solidify your IT brand's credibility.
Develop a strong connection with your audience
Developing a strong connection with your audience is essential for fostering brand loyalty and long-term success. According to the SEMRush State of Content Marketing 2023 report, 47 per cent of marketers say that researching their audience leads to success for the business.
Content marketing offers a unique opportunity to create content that truly resonates with your target audience and reflects your brand's values, resulting in an emotional connection that goes beyond mere transactions.
Personal stories can help humanise your brand, allowing your audience to relate to your company on a deeper level. Share your founder's journey, your team's experiences, or the challenges your company has overcome to demonstrate your values and showcase the people behind your IT brand.
Behind-the-scenes content offers a transparent look into your company's operations, building trust with your audience. Share videos or images that reveal your work environment, team-building activities, or the creative process behind your products and services.
User-generated content (UGC) is another powerful way to connect with your audience. Encourage customers to share their experiences with your brand through reviews, testimonials, or social media posts. This not only validates your brand's credibility but also makes your customers feel valued and heard.
Make your IT brand more accessible
Content marketing for IT companies can significantly enhance brand accessibility, helping your target audience connect with your company.
It's important to create content that addresses pain points and provides valuable insights, such as how-to guides, tutorials, FAQ pages, video content, and podcasts.
True content marketing also encourages conversation, ensuring that your audience can come back to you and communicate their thoughts and questions regarding what you share - this is vital for B2B brands, as your sales are often built on relationships.
To ensure accessibility for diverse audiences, use clear, concise language, make your content visually appealing, and adhere to accessibility guidelines. This is especially important given that 75 per cent of Americans with disabilities report using the internet on a daily basis, making it crucial to prioritise accessibility in your content marketing strategy.
Build trust
When it comes to IT and tech, you are often promoting and selling advanced technologies. It’s why building trust is such an important part of the buyer journey.
Whether you’re selling to consumers, or even knowledgeable businesses, there is always an element of education in order to show what makes your product special and worth investing in.
Trusted brands invest significant effort into content marketing, positively impacting customer acquisition and retention. To leverage content marketing for building trust, consider the following tips:
Prioritise valuable content: Create content that answers questions, solves problems, and offers insights. When you provide value without expecting anything in return, your audience is more likely to trust your advice and recommendations.
Be honest and transparent: Share genuine information about your products, services, and business practices. Transparency fosters credibility and trust.
Share brand stories: Authentic stories humanise your brand and help customers relate to your company's values and mission, ultimately nurturing trust.
Trust plays a significant role in customers' decision-making processes. A third of American consumers consider trust in brands essential, as they cannot afford to waste money on a bad purchase. Additionally, eight in 10 consumers indicate that trusting a brand to do the right thing is a deciding factor in their purchase decisions.
Generate better leads
A 2021 DemandGen study found that 62 per cent of B2B purchase decision-makers relied more on practical content like case studies and visual content, such as webinars, to guide their buying decisions.
When you create generalised content, it can be useful, but you may not be attracting readers who are ready to buy. When you really focus in on your content, perhaps with in-depth guides and how-tos, using very focused SEO keywords, then you start to attract motivated buyers who are looking to take that next step toward purchase.
Think of it as the difference between writing about the benefits of customer relationship management software and highlighting the exact benefits clients have experienced with your customer relationship software, using statistics to back up your points or even directly comparing it to the competition.
Now imagine if you included testimonials alongside this content and a discount or special offer only available to readers. Now you’re motivating them to take the next step.
Optimise your IT brand's search engine ranking
Content marketing and SEO go hand in hand to optimise your IT brand's search engine ranking. By combining SEO with informative content that is really useful to your readers, you can boost your online visibility and attract more visitors.
Search engines value high-quality content and algorithms scan that content to ensure it is relevant and useful.
If you infuse the blog posts, website content, video descriptions etc that you create with well-researched keywords that your target audience is searching for, you give yourself a better chance to appearing to the right audience.
For example, it’s not enough to use general SEO keywords about your great new project management platform. You want to delve deeper into what your customer looks for. Do they want a project management solution that is easy to use, requires minimal training or works across all devices? If so, you need these more targeted ‘long tail’ keywords in your content.
‘Best project management platform’ is fine, but if you use the keyword ‘best project management platform for time management’ you’re showing exactly how your target audience can benefit from what you’re offering.
Use these keywords naturally within your content, headings, and meta tags - which you’ll find in the back end of your website content management system. These meta tags aren’t just scanned by search engine algorithms, they are also what shows up on a search engine results page - so the more catchy and interesting you make them, the more likely someone is to click.
Consolidate your brand authority
When it comes to IT and tech content, education is key, as we’ve mentioned before. In a fast-moving industry, you need to keep your target audience up to date on all the latest developments, so they can make informed decisions.
By producing this content, you position yourself as an industry authority in two ways.
One: you link your brand to informative content that audiences want to read and can become a go-to resource.
Two: By frequently producing content on your blog and website, you show search engines that you are a ‘publisher’ that frequently produces useful content, which helps you rank higher online.
Having a well-planned content strategy is crucial for this. Focus on content types that establish authority, such as white papers, webinars, and research studies. Keep your content regularly updated and accurate to maintain credibility and foster trust.
By demonstrating your knowledge through content marketing, you'll reinforce your brand's authority, attract more leads, and strengthen your position in the IT industry.
Convert website visitors into loyal customers
Whether you’re a SaaS brand that needs to build a long-term relationship with your business customers, or a consumer tech brand that wants to create a loyal tribe, much like Apple has done, then you want to build a relationship with your customers ad for them to come back time and again. If you do your job right, they can even become advocates and ambassadors for your brand.
As well as starting a conversation with relevant and informative content, you want to make sure it is easily accessible - it makes customers much more likely to engage with your brand.
Ensure your website is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and visually appealing to engage visitors and encourage them to explore further. Craft compelling landing pages with clear CTAs, targeted messaging, and valuable offers to increase conversion rates.
Tailor your content to your ideal customers' needs and preferences, demonstrating how your products or services can solve their problems.
Increase brand awareness
No matter how exceptional your IT product or service, if your brand is invisible online, it won't reach its full potential.
High-quality content marketing builds brand awareness and gets your name out there. Shareable, entertaining, and informative content is key to increasing awareness, as it helps you reach wider audiences and boost visibility.
Emphasise promoting your IT industry-specific content through various channels and leverage user-generated content to expand your brand's reach. If you have a great blog post, share it on social media, invite people to comment, and ask their opinion. If you have a longer video, cut it into small chunks that can be shared and perhaps even integrated into blog posts or even guest posts that you publish on third-party websites.
By consistently creating and sharing relevant content, you'll effectively raise your IT brand's profile and attract more potential customers.
Why content marketing is important for B2B: Key takeaways
A strategic and well-executed content marketing approach is indispensable for IT brands striving for success.
When it comes to in-depth tech and IT, by focusing on engaging, informative, and targeted content, your brand can create lasting relationships, achieve increased visibility, and drive sustainable growth in a constantly changing and competitive market.
At Contese Agency, we’re experienced in content marketing for IT companies and tech leaders. We work alongside you to get the conversation started and build a connection with your target audience that informs, inspires and ultimately leads to a higher profile, more sales and better brand loyalty.