What makes content appealing to business clients? Which tactics should you be using? How are successful content marketing strategies formed? We’ve got all the answers for you in this week’s post!

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Mod Girl Marketing specializes in helping business professionals create a B2B content marketing plan that furthers business goals and yields ROI. Naturally, we’re closely following this important trend report from Marketing Profs and The Content Marketing Institute, as well as what B2B content marketing trends other industry thought leaders are predicting for the year.

Top 8 B2B Content Marketing Trends:

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Trend #1: Documented content marketing strategies

It takes more than a few business meetings to make B2B content marketing work for your business. The 2015 B2B Content Marketing study found that 32% of marketers who had a verbal strategy felt their marketing was highly rated. By comparison, 60% of marketers who wrote down a documented strategy said their content strategy was effective. Surprisingly, little more than a third of marketers bother to have a clearly defined, documented strategy for content publishing. A content calendar is one of the first steps we take with new clients.

[Tweet “Tip: If you want to be more effective at #contentmarketing, document your strategy!”]

Trend #2: LinkedIn as a top channel for B2B marketers

In a survey of nearly 2,000 marketers, LinkedIn was used by 94% — and cited as the “most effective” channel for communicating with B2B clients. For a successful LinkedIn presence, The Content Marketing Institute recommends mentioning your LinkedIn group every chance you get. Put a prominent link on your homepage and other social media sites, send out invitations to interact with your email newsletters, and issue special press releases to mark a subscriber milestone.

Secondly, keep your LinkedIn B2B content marketing subtle: Post sales offers and company news sparingly and strategically. Focus on sending links to great content, invite them to join your personal network, offer your assistance, and let the leads trickle in.

Thirdly, in addition to using LinkedIn as a place to post your content, you can also use your group as a source of new content ideas by posing a query and asking group participants to weigh in. From their responses, you can create an infographic or blog post. Take questions people have and use them as a springboard for more in-depth posts that may benefit more than one person in your community.

[Tweet “94% of #B2B marketers use Linkedin as a #contentmarketing channel”]

Trend #3: Using infographics to enrich content

As far as marketing tactics go, infographics had the greatest increase in usage from 51% to 62%. Why? Well, according to Brain Rider, people retain approximately 83% of what they learn visually (compared to just 20% retained with plain text). They say the best infographics:

• – Tell a relevant story
• – Are easy to share or embed
• – Are surrounded by SEO-rich text
• – Connect with audience need

Trend #4: More content!

Seventy percent of marketers in the Marketing Profs / Content Institute survey said they planned to publish MORE content than last year. Furthermore, the most effective marketers (you know, those ones with the documented B2B marketing strategy) publish new content DAILY. Although, a higher percentage of content marketers say they publish “a couple times per week.” Stumped for ideas? Here’s a great list of B2B blog post themes you should be publishing regularly. Also keep in mind that you don’t have to post lengthy blogs every single day; you can supplement with images, videos, infographics and other types of content.

Trend #5: Going beyond the blog

A blog is an important publishing platform, but it should connect with a larger B2B content marketing plan for true success. Marketing Expert Jeff Bullas recommends using e-books, video, infographics, slideshare presentations, social media, email marketing, press releases, webinars and testimonials as tactics to “creates brand awareness, inquiries, leads and sales.”

Trend #6: Corporate storytelling

Entrepreneur Magazine notes that the best B2B brands tell a story to elicit an emotional response from their readers. Use stories to demonstrate the uniqueness of your product or service and how it’s designed with a specific type of client in mind. Forrester Research recommends telling stories that give your business a human touch, stories that make your key marketing messages more memorable, and provoking new ways of thinking to gain credibility. Knowing your brand needs to “tell stories” is all well and good, but the bigger question then becomes HOW do brands achieve effective corporate storytelling? Here are 15 specific examples of B2B storytelling… and here are 5 more!

You might like: 8 Reasons All B2B Companies Should Blog

[Tweet “Trending in #B2B Content Marketing: Corporate Storytelling”]

Trend #7: Content analytics

From Google Webmaster Tools to social media dashboards to third-party software, there is no shortage of data tracking mechanisms for your content. And yet, very few companies actually monitor the reads, shares, and sales related to their content. Big data reporting is one of the things we do here at Mod Girl Marketing. We feel it is important to show how content is working to achieve business goals. It also helps us market smarter for the future. The greatest aspects of digital marketing are the ability to track progress and make real-time changes to improve results.

Infographic by: E-nor.com

[Tweet “How B2Bs use Google Analytics for better #contentmarketing”]

Trend #8: Difficulty finding good help

With so much emphasis put on content marketing, it’s inevitable that more people get pulled into the industry of content creation. Freelancers can be unpredictable in terms of scheduling and organization. “Writer mills” solicit the help of college students, non-native English speakers, and amateurs to generate content for clients. Worse yet, we find that even well-respected agencies are applying a one-size-fits-all template to every business they work with, failing to recognize differences between industries and audiences.

Mod Girl Marketing writers stand out from the masses with:

• – University bachelor degrees in journalism or business PhDs and Masters
• – Real world experience working in our specialty industries
• – Ongoing Digital Marketing training to keep up with current trends in SEO and social media
• – English as a first language with high-level proficiency in grammar and spelling
• – Excellent research skills to incorporate high authority links and resources into your posts
• – Rock-solid reliability and adherence to important deadlines

Already have writers and just need a solid strategy?

We’ve got you covered there too! Our professional content strategists work with internal marketing departments to devise effective, SEO-friendly content that gets seen and gets results!

Work with Mod Girl Marketing to create a more robust B2B content marketing plan for 2015. You’ll not only get the rich content you’ve always wanted, but you’ll also significantly decrease stress and see better returns on your investment too!