B2B demand generation in 2022: the role of content marketing
By Afton Brazzoni
B2C brands have long excelled at creating demand for their products, and a base of raving fans. If you tried to buy your child (or your spouse) a PlayStation 5 back in 2020, you probably remember the months-long wait. That was a Christmas gift in high demand. Today, as B2B tech marketers are looking for new ways to fill their pipelines, it’s critical to understand how your company’s marketing content plays a role in B2B demand generation.
In this blog post, we’ll dive into:
The role of content marketing in B2B demand generation
Five marketers’ perspectives on content trends in 2022
How you can drive demand with content — even if you’re strapped for time
B2B demand generation: how content marketing fits in
As a B2B tech marketer, you likely already understand the importance of driving demand for your offerings. Generating awareness of your company, products and services is a key first step in this process. Your audience — even the folks who aren’t currently in the buying cycle — first needs to know about your technology before they can consider it as an option. By taking the time to build brand affinity with potential customers, you’ll have a better chance at winning their business when they do begin to actively look for a new solution.
Some of the best demand generation tactics involve developing top-of-funnel content marketing assets that can help your tech company grow awareness. These assets could include long-form written content pieces you leave ungated on your website to increase consumption (a controversial idea, but one worth exploring) or thought leadership content in the form of LinkedIn articles.
Capturing existing in-market demand is another strategy you can execute using content marketing. Publishing high quality blog posts tailored to the search intent of your target audience is a go-to move here.
This is a brief snapshot of how content marketing aids in driving demand, with a few examples of demand generation. Keep in mind that to successfully create demand for your B2B tech company’s products and services, you must be willing to shift your marketing as your audience’s behaviour changes. We’ll dig into that next.
Driving demand with content in 2022: 5 marketers’ perspectives
No one can predict the future, but it’s always fun to give it a go. Here are a few key themes that emerged when we asked marketers which tried and true content marketing tactics will be sticking around in 2022, and which new trends are worth exploring.
1. Online communities that prioritize conversation and quality content will flourish.
“We're seeing a lot more pay for access content, which has a higher level of commitment. More people are also embracing the limitations of LinkedIn and Twitter, and in what seems like a lot more cases, moving toward those platforms being their primary destinations for sharing thoughts.” - Tommy Walker, Founder, The Content Studio
2. Selfless thought leadership will win brand affinity.
“Thought leadership is not about proving others wrong and saying that most colleagues and customers are doing something incorrectly. It’s about selflessly sharing new perspectives, concepts and frameworks that help others do better and think differently about their work.” -Goran Mirkovic, Senior Content Strategist, Animalz
3. The basics of relationship building will take centre stage.
“Digital content needs to be more human (especially B2B), and we will see a bit of that adjustment in 2022. I think more B2B money will be put into TikTok and B2B influencers will become much more popular. I also think there will be a scramble toward the end of 2022 to find lower-tech methods to reach people because social and digital have become so saturated.” - Sharon Glenn, Freelance Content Writer
4. Marketers will lean on a mix of trusted and trendy tactics.
“Email/newsletters will continue to grow, and video will continue to be a staple. I also think TikTok as a B2B channel will grow with varying degrees of success/failure.” - RaShea Drake, Marketing Director, Essential Hub
5. Content promotion will become a bigger focus.
“Standing out and getting seen online has become as important as creating the blog post itself. You could hire the best copywriter in the world to write you a blog post a day, but it’s money down the drain if nobody reads them.” - Dominic Kent, Director of Content Marketing & Communications, Mio
Get content creation backup
We’ve now covered some of the best demand generation tactics for B2B tech with a content marketing focus. What will your company try in 2022?
If you’re looking to ramp up content production but you need an extra set of hands to get it done, our team at Scribe National can help. We’ve worked with unicorns and others among Canada’s 50 fastest growing companies, right through to startups. Let’s talk.
