SEO Reseller Tips: The 4 Most Used B2B Content Marketing Tactics

Today’s white label SEO resellers must use or offer the following content marketing tactics: social media, on-site articles, newsletters, and blogs. These are the most used tactics by business to business (B2B) marketers when it comes to marketing with content, studies by reputable marketing organizations found.

According to the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and Marketing Profs, social media is now the most popular method to distribute content. Social media (with the exclusion of blogging) garnered an adoption rate of 87%. This is four percentage points higher than on-site articles, which was second most popular among B2B marketers. The third and fourth places were a close content between electronic newsletters (78%) and blogs (77%).

Social media tops B2B content marketing tactics (CMI/Marketing Profs)

Also notable in survey results is the increase in the number of tactics being used. The number is up from eight in 2011 to a dozen in 2012. In the previous survey, articles proved to be most popular.

LinkedIn Dominates Social Media Distribution

Digging deeper, the researchers found that LinkedIn was the most popular social channel for B2B marketers. The professional social network posted an adoption rate of 83% in 2012, up from 71% the previous year. 2011’s top performer, Twitter, was No. 2 at 80%, dropping six percentage points. Tying the micro-blogging site at the bridesmaid spot was Facebook, which also has an 80% adoption rate. The biggest social network posted a 70% rate the previous year.

Google properties rounded up the top five. YouTube was fourth with 61% while Google+ was fifth at 39%. In the previous year, the video-sharing site posted a 56% mark. Social layer Google+, meanwhile, leapfrogged from only 13%. SEO resellers who are also offering social media optimization should pay particular attention on this piece of data.

LinkedIn leads social media channels in content distribution (CMI/Marketing Profs)

Needless to say, these five online networks should be part of an SEO reseller’s social media optimization offerings. In a separate social media study by Social Media Examiner, the importance of LinkedIn was even stressed. Forced to choose only one platform, surveyed marketers opted for, as expected, Facebook (49%), and then LinkedIn (16%).

On Site-Articles, Newsletters, Blogs

(CMI/Marketing Profs)

The three other “tactics” chosen by respondents are also important so they must also be part of any reseller’s product line. The approach and intent may differ from platform to platform but in essence, you will need written content to publish any of these three.

Off-site articles used to be the norm but with Google’s algorithm updates Penguin and Panda cracking down on poor and massively submitted off-page articles (with rich backlinks), marketers now are focusing on generating quality content onsite. What white label SEO resellers need to remember here is that their clients need high quality written content to publish articles, newsletters, and blogs.

Based on Social Media Examiner’s findings, 66% of marketers plan to increase blogging activities this year. Some 62% want to learn more about it. At present, nearly 60% of marketers use blogs for their marketing activities.

What SEO Resellers Should Do Now

From these two studies, we know that there are four types of tactics that content marketers use today. The first is distribution via social media. Business owners and their marketing teams will be needing help in implementing social media optimization. As a reseller, you should be able to extend your hand to clients, especially when it comes to five important social networks: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. These are the social networks that require your attention today.

B2B marketers plan to spend more in the next 12 months (CMI/Marketing Profs)

Marketers and business owners are also expected to use of on-site articles, newsletters, and blogs for their marketing efforts. It is important to check with your recommended white label SEO reseller provider if they provide content generation. If they do, you’ll be in a great position to fill and profit from businesses’ need to create and publish onsite articles, newsletters, and blogs. Should you really expand your offerings to content creation and social media optimization instead of focusing purely on search engine optimization?

Will Marketers Spend More?

Good thing the CMI/Marketing Profs study also asked B2B marketers about their planned spending for the next 12 months. Some 45% answered in the affirmative! This already means 45% of your clients right now are likely to spend more for marketing in the coming months. Another 9% said they will “significantly” increase their marketing budget. Of the total, 34% will retain their exiting budgets. Only 2% said they will spend less this year while 10% are unsure.

Based on these studies alone, you now have an idea on where B2B businesses plan to spend their marketing budgets. As they say, luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. There is an opportunity to cash in on, but it will require that you prepare for it by learning more about the top four tactics used by marketers.  You need to start learning more about these services so that you can begin offering them, initially as an add-on to existing clients and then as a standalone product to new clients.