A look at the B2B buying journey shows that B2B marketers have a lot more stakeholder demands to satisfy than B2C marketers do.

A business-to-business company may need to impress nearly a dozen stakeholders — all of whom have different motivations, priorities and needs — and help them establish consensus on the decision. In contrast, a business-to-consumer company has to win over one individual consumer at a time.

B2B and B2C companies can use the same types of content and will often craft messages around value, trust and quality. But the differences between these business models impact content marketing strategies and messaging emphasis.

Key Characteristics of B2C Content Marketing

In general, B2C marketing tends to:

1. Support a shorter, faster customer journey.
2. Speak to audience members as individuals, often in relation to roles they play in their personal lives.
3. Emphasize how the brand can resolve personal challenges and help consumers reach lifestyle goals.
4. Use a conversational tone with more casual language.
5. Tap into the emotional, desire-oriented side of the decision-making process.
   

Key Characteristics of B2b Content Marketing

Although there are similarities, B2B content marketing tends to:

1. Support a longer, slower sales cycle.
2. Speak to audience members on a professional level related to their role at the company.
3. Emphasize how the brand can resolve operations-related pain points and help the company reach its ultimate goals.
4. Use a professional tone with industry-appropriate language.
5. Speak to the practical, rational side of the decision-making process.
   

Despite these distinctions, B2B marketers need to remember that business audiences are also people. While content may appeal to their workplace identities and needs, they still have a sense of humor, for example, and their emotions still play a role in the decision-making process. The most successful B2B content marketers can strike a balance between fundamental B2C and B2B strategies.

B2B Content Throughout the Sales Funnel

Even though the B2B buying journey often follows a labyrinthine path, it can still be organized into a chronological model known as the sales funnel.

Prospective buyers have different needs and intentions at each stage of the traditional B2B sales funnel, and various types of marketing content can serve different purposes along the way:

Awareness

Prospects are just starting to gather information and are becoming aware of different B2B product and solutions providers. Content such as blog posts and infographics helps prospects get the high-level answers they’re looking for while building brand awareness.

Interest

Once prospects know about a B2B business, they’re ready to learn more and be nurtured with content that appeals to their specific needs and interests. Email newsletters, eBooks, white papers and explainer videos can provide the deeper insights they’re looking for.

Consideration

When prospects are ready to seriously consider a B2B company’s products or services, they want to know more about those offerings in detail and whether they’re worth pursuing. Client case studies and testimonials provide social proof, while landing pages help address prospects’ specific questions at this stage.

Decision

Content that offers a deep dive or personalized perspective will help prospects make an informed choice when it comes time to make a final purchase decision. Product catalogs and personalized demos are valuable tools in this case.

Loyalty

After the initial purchase, B2B companies should keep their clients informed, engaged and satisfied with resources that continue to enrich the business relationship with added value. Video tutorials, service guides and other helpful content can help encourage retention.

Content is a core driver of success in any B2B marketing strategy. It helps businesses connect with the right audience, build credibility and move prospects through the funnel in a way few other tactics can match.

If you’re wondering why content deserves a front-row seat in your marketing plan, here are 10 key benefits that show just how powerful it can be:

1. Address Real Problems Your Audience Cares About

Effective content speaks directly to your ideal customers by acknowledging their specific challenges. By answering common questions and tackling pain points head-on, you position your brand as relevant and helpful from the start.

2. Boost Visibility and Brand Recognition

Publishing quality content consistently across the platforms your audience uses most helps get your name in front of the right people. Over time, this steady exposure helps establish your business as a recognizable and trusted brand.

3. Position Your Business as a Trusted Expert

Content that delivers meaningful insights builds authority. When you share original perspectives, data-backed analysis or practical advice, your audience starts to view your business as a knowledgeable leader in your industry.

4. Support Buyers at Every Stage of Their Journey

From educational blog posts for early-stage research to detailed product comparisons for final decision-making, different types of content guide prospects forward, giving them exactly what they need to keep moving through the funnel.

5. Equip Internal Champions to Advocate for You

Helpful content doesn’t just influence the person reading it — it often gets shared internally. When an employee finds your material useful, they’re more likely to pass it along to key decision-makers, helping your brand earn trust by association.

6. Capture Leads Who Are Ready to Engage

High-value gated content like white papers, eBooks or webinars gives prospects a reason to share their contact information. In return, your team gains qualified leads and context for personalized follow-up and nurturing.

7. Arm Your Sales Team With Useful Tools

Content isn’t just for marketing — it’s a powerful resource for sales. Case studies and industry-specific guides, for example, help sales reps reinforce your brand’s value during the sales process.

8. Outrank Competitors in Search Results

A strong SEO-focused content strategy helps your business claim top spots in search engine rankings for keywords your audience is searching, giving you an edge over competitors who aren’t investing in content.

9. Increase Website Traffic and Drive Deeper Engagement

Content draws people to your website organically and keeps them there. When it’s well-written, useful and strategically distributed, content encourages longer visits and ongoing interactions with your brand.

10. Earn Credibility Through Mentions and Shares

The more valuable your content, the more likely it is to be referenced by blogs, media outlets or influencers in your space. These earned media mentions can significantly expand your reach and boost your brand’s credibility without extra ad spend.

Stellar content is integral to a successful B2B marketing strategy. After all, the quality of a company’s content marketing speaks volumes about the quality of its products or services.

Here are the hallmarks of high-quality B2B content:

High-Quality

From copywriting to graphic design, content marketing collateral should be polished and free of errors.

On Brand

In order for the company to reap the brand-boosting benefits of content marketing, every asset must be consistent and brand-aligned, from the tone of voice to the color palette and all the details in between.

Skimmable

Business leaders are busy and don’t often have time to read an entire resource cover to cover. Copy should be broken up with informative subheadings that convey the overall message while inviting readers to pause and focus on key topics.

Relevant

B2B content should not only be relevant to the target audience’s needs and pain points, it must also be created in support of the company’s own business objectives.

Consistent

Producing just one great eBook per year won’t help a B2B business grow. Instead, content should be produced and distributed at a regular cadence.

Accurate

The data points and facts presented in the content must all be truthful and free of errors or false assertions that could mislead B2B audiences and cause damage to either the company or its target audience.

Action-Oriented

Content should include a call-to-action (CTA) that urges audience members to take the next steps, whether that’s filling out a form to request more information or calling the sales team to schedule a demo.

Audience preferences, overarching business goals and campaign strategies inform B2B marketing content. Any form of written, visual or audio material that supports the above criteria can make a positive impression on business audiences, but it’s important to use a variety of content to satisfy the unique stages of the buyer journey.

Content that resonates with a B2B audience includes:

Blog Posts

Answer common questions and clarify industry concepts to capture search traffic. Blog posts are great for both building trust and boosting SEO with helpful, keyword-targeted content.

White Papers

Explore complex topics or challenges in depth. White papers are ideal for showcasing expertise and providing detailed solutions to high-level audience segments like decision-makers.

Reports

Share original research, survey data or industry benchmarks. Reports offer valuable insights that position your brand as a go-to resource for reliable information.

eBooks 

Provide comprehensive guidance on a topic in a visually appealing way. eBooks are perfect for lead generation and establishing thought leadership, especially when addressing broad or strategic themes.

Guides

Explain how to do something or how something works, step by step. Guides are useful for educating prospects on your processes, tools or best practices.

Infographics

Break down complex data or workflows into a visually digestible format. Infographics are great top-of-funnel content for posting on social media or embedding in a blog post or landing page.

Email Newsletters

Email newsletters keep your brand top-of-mind by delivering timely insights, company updates or curated content directly to subscribers’ inboxes.

Landing Pages

Highlight the benefits of your products or services and drive conversions. Landing pages should be focused, persuasive and aligned with your campaigns or offers.

Case Studies

Success stories prove your products or solutions work. Case studies help you demonstrate ROI and provide social proof through real-world results and satisfied clients.

Client Testimonials

Capture the voice of your customer. Short quotes or video snippets from happy clients help build credibility and trust with skeptical buyers.

Video Content

Bring your brand and ideas to life. Use videos to explain concepts, showcase products or share insights in a format that’s easy to consume.

Podcasts

Conduct interviews with experts, discuss industry trends or share company stories in audio form. Podcasts are a great way to reach on-the-go audiences and deepen engagement.

Webinars

Host live or recorded sessions that educate your audience. Webinars combine thought leadership with real-time engagement.

Social Media Posts

Distribute bite-sized insights, promote other content or join relevant conversations on social media. Posting on socials is great for visibility and driving organic traffic.

B2B Content Variety

In B2B content marketing, content variety is the spice of every strategy. It refers to the strategic use of different types, formats and styles of content to engage target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. 

In B2B marketing, buying cycles are typically longer and involve multiple decision-makers. A well-rounded content strategy with ample variety ensures your brand stays relevant and persuasive throughout that journey, the ultimate goal being to address the diverse informational needs and preferences of business decision-makers.

B2B content variety goes beyond just having the diverse content types mentioned above to include variety by buyers’ journey stage, format, channel and even voice.

Content Variety by Buyer’s Journey Stage

Content should match the prospect’s stage in the buying process:

• Top of Funnel (Awareness): Educational blog posts, explainer videos, infographics.
• Middle of Funnel (Consideration): Webinars, white papers, product comparison guides.
• Bottom of Funnel (Decision): Case studies, testimonials, free trials, detailed demos.

Content Variety by Format & Channel

Even within a single content type, variation in format and distribution matters:

• Written vs. Visual vs. Interactive: E.g., a blog post vs. a sales deck vs. a quiz.
• Channel-specific adaptations: LinkedIn posts, email campaigns, gated landing pages, YouTube videos.

Content Variety by Voice & Perspective

Content variety may also involve switching up the tone or source of the content. For example:

• Corporate voice vs. individual brand personas.
• Thought leadership vs. practical advice.
• Internal experts vs. guest contributors.

Whether you want to start a business-to-business content strategy from the ground up or fine-tune an existing plan, the path to success will follow many of the same steps.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Create Buyer Personas

After developing an understanding of the B2B buyer’s journey, create buyer personas to depict what the journey looks like for your own clientele and what content will make the biggest impact at each step.

Gather insights through a combination of market research, conversations with the sales team and interviews with clients who represent your ideal buyer. Get to know what your target audience cares most about, what their main pain points and motivations are and how they make purchasing decisions. Find out where they go to look for answers, how they engage with content, and what type of content and marketing messages they like most.

Write up a handful of profiles or bios that represent key stakeholders and decision-makers you encounter during the sales process. Use these buyer personas to inform how you tailor your content strategy and marketing messages to each audience member.

2. Map Key Business Goals to Content Marketing Campaigns

Any content that doesn’t directly support overarching business goals is probably not worth creating. To ensure your B2B content marketing activities help drive growth, set goals for your campaigns that tie into key business goals.

Choose the types of digital marketing content that will help you achieve those goals. You might map different content marketing programs to different objectives throughout the year, or build one campaign designed to produce steady results.

3. Develop Research-Driven Content Ideas

Knowing your audience and your top business goals, you’re ready to begin brainstorming. Come up with content ideas and topics that will appeal to your B2B buyers. Complete market research to see what’s already out there and how you can differentiate your content. Conduct keyword research and evaluate search intent to fine-tune your approach.

If you have a healthy amount of existing resources, consider running a content audit to identify content gaps and missed opportunities. This can also help you pinpoint underperforming content that has the potential to be reoptimized.

4. Create a Plan for Content Production

Before finalizing the theme and direction of your B2B content marketing campaign, make sure you have the resources available to carry out the plan and create all of the content you’ve brainstormed.

Be realistic about the available time, budget and skills and how they’ll direct what you are capable of producing. For instance, a series of video testimonials might sound good on paper, but this could be challenging if you don’t have access to a trusted, experienced video team and the budget to support the project.

Whether you assign the work to in-house creatives, agency partners or a combination of both, confirm you have everything you need to bring your content goals to fruition before finalizing your strategy.

5. Determine Your Content Distribution Approach

Content creation for B2B isn’t the final step; you need a plan for how, where and when you’ll distribute new content. Your content promotion plan could include a mix of email, social media, influencer or search engine marketing. However you decide to promote a piece of content, ensure your chosen channels make sense based on where your buyer personas and target audience are already looking.

Find ways to make the most of each new resource as well. Repurpose content to present one asset in different ways and at different times to engage new viewers. For instance, after the initial distribution of an eBook, adapt it into a blog post, webinar, explainer video, infographic or social media post.

After launching a B2B content marketing campaign, marketers and decision-makers need to understand its performance. Measuring a content strategy can help determine the ROI and impact of the current campaign, but the lessons learned can also inform future content marketing efforts.

Define What Success Means to You

The best and only way to understand whether your content marketing strategy is working is to have a clear understanding of what “working” means for your business.

If you mapped your content strategy to key business goals, you should be able to pinpoint the indicators of content marketing success. For instance, an effective B2B strategy might mean expanding your reach and raising brand awareness among new audiences. Certain metrics related to your lead generation efforts can provide a glimpse into how you’re doing on this front.

You might also strive to optimize your workflows and reduce bottlenecks internally, or forge deeper relationships with your existing clients. In either case, you’ll need to look at very different KPIs to understand your strategy’s results.

Aligning your measurement tactics with your overarching goals will show you how you’re doing and where there are opportunities for improvement.

B2B Content Marketing Metrics

While the metrics you track depend on your top goals, some always-valuable KPIs to observe include:

• Lead generation efforts: Shows how effectively your content is converting interest into potential sales opportunities.
• Organic traffic growth: Indicates how well your content is performing in search and attracting qualified, unpaid visitors.
• Email subscribers: Reflects audience interest and builds a direct channel for ongoing engagement and nurturing.
• Backlinks from authoritative sources: Boosts SEO and signals credibility when trusted sites reference your content.
• Influencer performance: Measures the reach and impact of third-party advocates promoting your content or brand.
• Engagement with web or social content: Reveals how compelling your content is and how well it resonates with your audience.
• Form completion rates: Tracks how successfully your gated content or offers convert visitors into leads.
• Traffic sources: Helps identify which channels drive the most valuable visitors to your content.