6 Often-overlooked Or Forgotten Ways To Promote B2B Content

Last updated on October 24th, 2023 at 12:53 pm

Content marketing might bring more leads than traditional outbound marketing, but only if your customers and prospects consume it.

You’ve probably addressed this by covering the basics, from creating a variety of assets (like blog posts, infographics and videos), and using a mix of paid channels like LinkedIn and getting the attention of buyer-centric sites like TrustRadius and G2.

What follows are a few other ideas. Some you may have come across in passing but never explored. Others might be new.

For example, you might not have tried getting creative and innovative when connecting with your customers. Have you ever sent out text message blasts to send SMS messages globally? If not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to reach thousands of clients immediately.

Either way, Q4 is a great time to take a second look at your options and to ensure you’re covering all the possible bases:

1. Review Sites

Studies have shown that 95% of customers read online reviews before buying a product. And surprisingly, a product with no reviews is 270% less likely to be bought than a product with five reviews. The most common method is to leverage review sites — and not just the best-known ones.

Here are a few sites you may not have used yet that you can try out:

FinancesOnline – This review site is an excellent option for B2B businesses. In addition to user reviews, the platform also contains insights from B2B experts that goes into detail about the product’s features and benefits.
SoftwareWorld – SoftwareWorld is a review platform that compares different software on the market. It’s designed to help businesses find products across multiple categories such as accounting, CRM, project management, and more.
Software Advice – This review platform is owned by Gartner, which gives it a lot of credibility. It has over 800,000 unbiased reviews from B2B users as well as detailed product comparisons.
Crozdesk – A good option for B2B SaaS companies. It contains over 250 software categories and more than 7,000 reviews.

Once you’ve collected enough reviews, add them to your landing pages or any other content you promote. According to research, reviews increase landing page conversions by 30%.

Having five reviews also results in purchase likelihood increasing by a factor of almost four times. This boost in conversions not only leads to more sales, but it also increases the likelihood of customers sharing your content with their network.

2. Advertising on Capterra

Another often overlooked channel for promoting your B2B content is Capterra advertising. Webinar ad campaigns are especially effective for promoting new content or product releases.

According to a recent survey by Demand Gen Report found that 48% of B2B buyers described webinars as the most valuable content format for the middle stages of the buyer journey. They were also most willing to share contact details to access a webinar than any other type of content.

What this means is that you can use webinars and Capterra advertising as a powerful content delivery channel. Rather than promoting an ebook or whitepaper about a topic, think of creating a webinar about it instead. You’ll see a noticeable increase in user sign-ups and engagement on your content as a result. To run a successful ad campaign on Capterra, you’ll need the following:

Optimized landing pages and/or a website
Tools to track conversions and referrals
A well-defined target market
A well-defined sales process

Once you’ve launched an ad campaign on Capterra, be sure you regularly check up on it. You want to make sure that your landing page is converting and that your ads are performing well in terms of overall click-through rates and budgets. Below is an example of a high converting B2B landing page.

There are a couple of things that make this an effective landing page. First, it uses a countdown timer. Research shows that countdown timers improve landing page conversion rates by 147%. Second, it has a “what you’ll learn” section, which gives users a good idea of what to expect.

#3 Scoop.It and Microsites

B2B firms sometimes create their own complex microsite or hubs, but Scoop.it is a content platform that enables you to publish microsites posts about different topics in a more turnkey manner.

For example, if you’re a B2B marketer at a tech startup, you can create a microsite about AI, and another about cloud technology. Each page will have its own audience and content. And you’ll also be able to curate content from other sources.

The more popular your microsite gets, the more it will help with your content promotion efforts. More people will read your posts, and you’ll also get the benefit of having an external backlink pointing back to your original post. A study by TechTarget found that users exposed to microsites have a 7.5 % higher likelihood to recommend, a 9% increase in brand consideration, and 13.6% increase in message association.

Besides Scoop.It, here are a few other platforms you can use to create a microsite:

Your microsites can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. A good example of a B2B microsite is Adobe’s CMO site. It provides useful news to marketing executives as well as unique interviews with experts in the industry.

4. SMS

SMS is another overlooked content distribution channel for content distribution. Consider this: the average open rate for a text message is 98%, and 85% of mobile users prefer a text from businesses over phone calls or emails. If that’s not enough to convince you that SMS marketing is a channel worth using, then nothing else will.

The key to succeeding with SMS marketing is to use a text messaging app. Doing so will allow you to automate your SMS campaigns and keep track of how everything is performing. Your messages don’t have to be complicated. All you need to do is share a quick message about your latest posts, news, or any other announcements.

Here are a few templates you can use to share your content through text messages:

Get Mother’s Day sorted. Read our latest blog post on [site name] to discover the best Mother’s Day gifts. To optout text abcd to 89022
Our free ebook is now available! Subscribe to our newsletter to get a copy. To optout text abcd to 89022
Thanks for signing up to our webinar on [topic] for [date of webinar]. Be sure to check out our latest blog post to learn more about our guest speaker. To optout text abcd to 89022

5. Email signatures

Another great content distribution channel you may not immediately think of is your email signature. Every time you send an email to a prospect, you have a chance to promote your latest content.

Let’s say your company has a webinar coming up. In addition to using standard email campaigns, you can also use your email signature announce the webinar . Your Call to Action could be a simple line of text like in the image below.

Using your email signature as a content promotion channel is great because it’s free. You can use it without having to worry about a monthly subscription fee. And when you need to promote something different, all you have to do is change one line of text.

Email signatures can help foster relationships with readers, even when sent through automated software or lead engines. Just as our physical signature conveys trustworthiness and accountability in person-to-person interactions, an electronic signature sends the same message through the digital realm. Personalizing emails helps build familiarity between sender and recipient. Therefore, it’s wise to plan strategically what goes in your email signature. You can include links to company websites and social media pages, contact information, or even a featured blog article. By carefully considering the content of your email signature and optimizing for maximum impact, you have another powerful tool in promoting content distribution and building relationships with prospects.

6. Answer questions on Quora

Answering questions on Quora is one of the best (and most overlooked) ways of promoting B2B content. According to Quora’s B2B Marketing Guide and based on a 2017 study, 54% of Quora users have an annual household income of more than $100,000.

Quora users are also 37% more likely to be in management than the general adult population. And users aged 18 years and older spend 2x as much time on Quora than LinkedIn.

The key to seeing seeing results on Quora is to know which strategies to use. Remember, Quora is a place to share information, not spam links to your content. Always read the rules before participating. Provide value and people will be more likely to engage with your content.

7. Try going offline.

Though the vast majority of B2B relations are managed online, you can still form strong relationships with other businesses (and simultaneously promote your services) offline, too. While this doesn’t mean that you should immediately unplug and abandon your advertising campaigns – it does mean that you should try to blend traditional and digital marketing strategies together in order to promote your services to a much wider audience.

For example, one way to promote the B2B content and services you offer to a broader audience is by handing out Company Swag or promotional products. That being said, it’s vital that you don’t just stick your logo onto a few products and hope for the best – you need to ensure that you choose products that align with the services your company offers. They should also be inherently useful to your client. For example, if you are offering B2B services to a tech company-branded materials such as USB sticks will probably not be much use (they’ll likely have them in abundance on-site), but you could provide them with materials such as mouse mats or other accessories.

You should also ensure that your company swag directs customers or clients to your brand – including websites and contact details wherever possible, as this is an easy way to test whether or not your promotional products are effective.

Conclusion

There are many other channels that you can use to promote your B2B content. Depending on your audience, some channels will work better than others. The best way to know which one to stick with is to test things out continually.

If you’re on a limited budget, you may also want to prioritize organic channels first before spending money on paid channels such as LinkedIn ads. Once you find something that works, stick with it, and you should notice great results.