In the second installment of our Behind the Scenes series, we interviewed Travis Leggett, our Senior Copywriter about his insights on creating content for B2B marketing purposes. Travis, a Chicago native, has been working as a marketing copywriter for over 5 years, being part of various projects at RDB with global clients, such as Western Union, Groupon and eBay among others.  

Kalman: How is creating engaging content different from a B2B audience than to a B2C audience?

Leggett: With marketing campaigns for B2C you generally have a pretty straightforward plan. You may have a number of different target audiences, but they will all use the product or service in the same way. 

A B2B marketing strategy has the potential to be quite different. 

Even if you’re creating content for a specific product/service, it’s likely something that has multiple applications. You really have to find a way to connect with each audience individually to highlight the aspects that are important specifically to them. This usually involves a good deal of research and a lot of back and forth with the client.

Kalman: How do you usually start building a B2B content strategy?

Leggett: After the initial brief from the client, I’ll sit together with my project manager and designer to discuss ideas and see what more information we might need from a rebrief. It’s really important to know what the pain points are as well as what the purchasing process looks like. As these dictate many different aspects of the messaging. Once we feel comfortable, we’ll start with an overarching concept for the content that we feel we can adapt to each of the target groups. 

Kalman: What B2B content marketing tactics/channels do you use the most? (Like blog content, social media, videos, newsletter, etc.)

Leggett: That’s an interesting question. In most cases, we leave that decision up to the client when we build the strategy. We always have suggestions, but sometimes they just aren’t feasible for the client. For example, some clients don’t want to go through the process of setting up an email newsletter or don’t have anywhere to host a blog.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to use all of the tactics/channels you’ve mentioned and they each have their strong points. Blog posts are something that we’ve done a lot of as well as email marketing newsletters. They’re both great for getting a lot of information across at one time. 

Recently, I’ve been involved in a lot more videos, which I like as they allow you to focus on one specific aspect and make it digestible. I think social media is actually one of the more difficult tactics/channels to use with B2B content creation. You can create what you think will be really effective content but if you don’t have accurate customer targeting, you entirely miss the mark.  

Kalman: How do you develop new B2B content ideas?

Leggett: As much as B2B and B2C content vary, a lot of my content ideas come from knowing what’s been successful in B2C. Having an understanding of what formats work best on which platforms is a huge help, as are the takeaways from previous B2B marketing efforts. Once I’ve got that figured out, I look at the business goals (lead generation, engagement, registration) and try to find a way to combine them. 

We really like to try and be just as creative with the way that we execute a B2B campaign as we would be if we were working on something that was B2C. One of the things that I always like to look at is the interconnectedness of the content. By that, I mean where is the viewer/reader going to encounter this content, where could it potentially lead them (via a link) and does the content match the platform.   

Kalman: What are the main KPIs or B2B content marketing goals?

Leggett: I wouldn’t say that there’s a hard and fast rule to KPIs for a B2B campaign. Generally speaking, I think they fall into two categories. You have some B2B campaigns where the main goal is to generate engagement. Here we’re measuring things like reach, likes, open-rate or time spent on a page. Then you have a second category that is focused more on a specific call to action. In these cases, we’re looking at things like cost per click (CPC), the click-through rate (CTR), cost per registration (CPR) or some sort of actual increase in sales.