Savvy B2B Marketing

Ever have one of those posts that sticks with you? Well, I have been thinking about a post from Doug Kessler on Library Marketing for a few months. While the term Library Marketing may be new, the concept is probably is something you have considered. As the content on B2B websites grow, we marketers have a real challenge on our hands: how do we best organize information so the right buyers can find  the right information at the right time?

This weekend as I was putting together our weekly dinner plan, I headed over to Allrecipes, which is my trusty resource for, well, recipes. This site does a great job with organizing its information, providing multiple ways for users to find the information that is most relevant to them. Lots of great ideas for B2B marketers! Here are a few.

Promote popular content

One of my favorite ah-ha points from Doug’s post is this: “A really common mistake in content marketing is to promote the recent over the best. A two-year-old eBook might still be the best for certain audiences and buying stages.”  

While there is value in promoting recent content, I all-too-often see companies focusing primarily on recent content instead of the most relevant content, especially if they have a blog (I’ve been guilty of this myself).

Allrecipes realizes that its users don’t care which recipes were recently added, so instead of promoting the most recent recipes, they make it easy for users to search by need:

• Browse popular collections
• See what the top searches are to inspire some ideas

The point is, your prospects and customer don’t only care about what content you added recently, either (and, your newest content may not be the content that converst the best, either).

If you are looking for a B2B company that does this well, check out Marketo (an example referenced by Doug). As you’ll see, you can search for content based on popularity, rating or date.

Action: What is the most popular content on your site and how can you better promote it?

Feature timely content

Allrecipes does a great job of showcasing ideas based on season or holiday: BBQ recipes in the summer or Christmas cookies in December.

While you probably don’t want to be changing the content on your website based on holiday, think about what may be driving people to your website? Is there some relevant industry news?

Salesforce.com is a B2B company that features timely content. For instance, one of the features on its home page is the stat that Fortune named them one of the fastest-growing companies. As a call to action, they link to their careers section.

Action: Would your website benefit from timely content?

Provide a customized experience for users

Years ago I created a recipe box on Allrecipes where I can store any ideas that inspire me. Additionally, they also have a section that stores my most recently-viewed recipes. Because I can so easily store information, I often return to the site.

If you have a lot of useful content, think about ways to help your users save and return to what is most meaningful to them.

As an example of a site that does this well, check out CMO.com in which all users can register for a My CMO.com account where they can save their favorite articles. They can also share their saved articles vis email and social sites.

Action: What can you do to help return visitors get the information they want more quickly? 

I’d love to get your ideas as well on how to organize content. What have you seen – on B2B or B2C sites – that works well?

Related posts:

• How Do You Make Time For All of This Content?
• Are You Giving Your B2B Prospects Too Much Information?
• Web Copywriting 101: Begin With the End in Mind

About the author: Michele is the Executive Editor of the Content Marketing Institute where where she works with a fabulous group of contributors who know a lot about content marketing. She's also a B2B content marketing consultant who has a passion for helping companies use content to connect with their ideal buyers. You can follow her onTwitter @michelelinn or read more of her posts on Savvy B2B.

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