Content is an inevitable part of digital marketing. It is the medium that allows businesses to interact with their audience and convey the key message. The quality of content greatly determines the success of a website. However, how B2C businesses engage with their audience varies from how B2B businesses do that. To master content marketing, there are some similarities and differences you should be through with. We’re going to talk about Content Writing for B2B & B2C in this post.
Promoting a brand or a business on the internet using written content is a common and crucial digital marketing practice. Without written content, you can’t properly communicate with your audience or put forward your offer. All your marketing and advertising campaigns, search engine optimization, and so on are aimed at increasing traffic on your website.
When visitors finally reach your website, they are met your content. If they find value in it, they may like to go further down in your conversion funnel. And if they don’t they may just leak out of it. Not to mention how it determines your dwell time and bounce rate which further goes on to impact search engine ranking of your website. Moreover, keyword placement—which is the cornerstone of SEO– is impossible without content writing.
All these things leave no wonder why smart businesses are increasingly investing in content marketing services.
There are some standard truths and norms of Content Writing for B2B & B2C. To get the best out of your content, you need to be familiar with…
Similarities and differences between B2B and B2C content marketing
Similarities…
➢ Providing value to customers
Consumers sort to search engines to satisfy their queries. Hence, one of the main objectives behind content creation is providing value to your target customers. If your content is not solving some problem of your target audience or not providing some other value, it’d be next to useless. This is one of the key common traits in Content Writing for B2B & B2C.
➢ Search engine optimization
Optimizing your website for search engines imply maintaining it in a way that it ranks high on search engines. Websites that manage to appear at the top of SERPs enjoy high click-through-rates and great online traffic. Hence, high ranking on search engine is something that is crucial for all online businesses—be it B2B or B2C. This is done by creating quality content, incorporating relevant keywords and media types, and so on. Hence, both the business groups require content marketing for SEO.
➢ Keyword placement
You must be aware how important keywords are for search engine optimization. It allows your target audience to reach your business based on their query terms. For example, if someone searches for “best digital marketing agencies in Ottawa,” Google will show those webpages in result that effectively use these terms in their content. Therefore, keywords are crucial for proper indexing and ranking.
The example given above is that of a B2B business. However, the same stands true for B2C businesses as well. For instance, if someone searches for “best wedding dresses,” Google will again follow the similar process to show results.
The point being, effective keyword placement is crucial in the content marketing strategies of both B2B and B2B businesses.
➢ Brand Awareness
Another key content marketing objective that both B2B and B2C businesses share is brand awareness. Making your target audience aware about the existence of your brand is essential and the foremost step of brand building. It is the first step of marketing funnel and customer acquisition. Hence, both business groups produce content to create brand awareness.
➢ Customers are more aware than ever
With internet deepening its roots in even the remotest parts of the world now, all sort of information is readily available. As a result, people are becoming more and more aware. This stands true for both B2B and B2C customers.
Differences…
➢ Groups v/s individual buyers
One key difference between B2B and B2B business is that the former sells its products to a group of stakeholders while the latter sells it to individuals. You B2B customer can include multiple individuals like managers, executives, IT staffs, and so on. On the other hand, B2C customers are generally individuals. Apparently, this causes a great difference in the way content marketing strategies of these groups differ in ways of communicating with the target customer.
➢ Difference of scale
When dealing with another business, a company generally deals in large quantities of products. On the other hand, when dealing with an individual buyer, the transaction is comparatively small scaled. This naturally causes a great difference between how these two groups approach content marketing. A B2B company may try to capitalize on the economies of scale while a B2C company may try to focus more on how their product provides value to the customer.
➢ Level of emotionality
B2B businesses try to communicate with their customers on a more rational level and lesser emotional level. It is because such customers focus more on practical benefits. However, individual buyers generally look for products that improve the quality of their life. As a result, in B2C content marketing, there is a greater focus on emotional appeal.
➢ Duration of lead nurturing
For B2B organization, sales-cycle tends to be way longer than that of B2C. In the former case, the buying decision tends to take a long period of time. There is a lot of research and discussion included. On the other hand, you can possibly sell a B2C product at even the very first touch point. Hence, B2B and B2C content marketing varies accordingly. In the former case, businesses use heavily detailed and thorough content with the aim of converting a lead eventually into a buyer over a certain period of time. On the other hand, B2C content focuses more at catching leads in an impulse and turning them into buyers.
➢ Types of content
Since B2B customers have a more rational and strategic approach, they are more interested in educational and informative content. On the other hand, due to levels of emotions involved, B2C customers are more attracted towards fun and entertaining content. This is one common difference between the types of content B2B and B2C businesses produce.
Bottom line
There are many similarities and differences between how content marketing writing for B2B & B2C companies. There are a number of differences like duration of sales cycle, types of content, levels of emotions involved in the buying process, difference of scale and the number of users, and so on. However, there are many common grounds like providing value to customers, SEO, brand promotion, more-than-ever aware customers, and so on. To master digital marketing based on content, these are some very important comparisons to know.
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