Even more than their B2C counterparts, B2B marketers rely on content marketing—by a margin of 91% to 86% of organizations.
Success in B2B tech content marketing requires multi-touch lead generation strategies driven by a portfolio of different kinds of engaging content. For tech content writers, engaging target audiences and building thought leadership means developing versatility in a wide range of popular B2B content types.
This guide enumerates the major high-performing B2B tech content types and provides examples of each.
Key Takeaways
- B2B tech marketers need comprehensive content writing and development skills to achieve marketing goals
- Effective B2B tech marketing content formats include whitepapers, e-books, case studies, and webinars
- Developing the in-house proficiency to cover the spectrum of content writing and development necessary to stand out from the competition can challenge even large and experienced organizations—partnering with content development specialists helps niche tech marketers deliver a diverse repertoire of engaging content to target audiences
Types of B2B Tech Content with Examples
While there’s no set canon of content types tech content writers should have in their wheelhouse, the following content types are some of the most effective and commonly-used in B2B tech marketing — at ActualTech Media, we focus on all of these content types for our clients (and more).
1. Whitepapers
In tech, businesses typically create whitepapers to educate potential customers on the significance of a new product or technology. Writing technical whitepapers includes input from product designers and engineers as well as third-party experts. Whitepapers tend to be longer and more technical than blogs, though less technical than academic studies or documentation intended for implementation or troubleshooting.
B2B marketers usually keep whitepapers behind a registration wall to drive lead generation. For that reason, titles, abstracts, and preview images should be eye-catching and clearly communicate what the reader can expect to find inside.
Cisco
Digital communications and data security services giant, Cisco, regularly publishes highly informative, hot-topic whitepapers that speak to targeted firmographics and include sleek visuals and figures in tune with the company’s brand. Cisco’s Networking and Your Competitive Edge checks the boxes of what a tech whitepaper should deliver. The introduction places the topic in the context of an ongoing global trend—digital transformation as a race to maintain an edge over the competition—and then ties the meat of the paper to the stakes keeping pace with what technology represents for individual businesses.
2. E-books
E-books have become a popular medium for B2B marketers to connect with target audiences in the middle of the funnel. As resources for potential customers to educate themselves further about products and services previously encountered, e-books should emphasize visual learning aids in conjunction with text.
As with whitepapers, marketers generally gate e-books to drive lead generation. As long-form content with a strong visual component, e-books are an excellent opportunity to give readers a quick guide or course on how to do something practical in their fields.
Optimizely
Content consulting service Optimizely’s e-book Master Your Next Website Redesign takes readers on a step-by-step walk-through of website redesign set in a visually alluring backdrop of illustrations expressed in simple geometric shapes.
As a guide, the book is quite comprehensive and earns the use of the word “master” in the title. As website redesigns include technical SEO and web development components not necessarily associated with front-end design, doing the job poorly involves significant financial risk for most companies. Optimizely’s how-to breaks the process down into easily tackled stages and goals, such as capturing analytics data, developing identity through visual design, and QA testing wireframes. To clarify more technical steps, the book includes several apt use cases. Overall, Optimizely succeeds here in combining thorough technical guidance with engaging and instructive visuals.
3. Case Studies
Case studies in B2B content illustrate the value of a company’s products or services by examining a specific client experience. Beginning with an introduction to the client’s business and a challenge they previously faced, case studies focus on how an organization helped the client understand the problem and apply an effective solution. Case studies demonstrate proven successes and allow clients to advocate for solutions they’ve experienced first-hand.
Deloitte
The professional services network, Deloitte, maintains an educational content hub called Deloitte Insights where the company publishes in-depth case studies on topics such as financial advice, risk assessment, and tech consulting.
For tech clients, the case studies break down into three subsections. Deloitte’s case study with cloud-computing and virtualization architect VMware provides an excellent example:
- Ambition: Explains the problem the client wanted to solve or a new goal they wanted to accomplish.
In the case of VMware, the company wanted to enhance customer and partner UX on its digital marketing and self-service platform
- Action: Summarizes the action plan presented to the client.
Deloitte’s plan for VMware began with a customized “Ease of Doing Business” pain-point analysis conducted with the company’s self-serve B2B customer base. Ultimately, Deloitte recommended a reinvention of VMware’s UX design and creative conceptualization process based on a collaborative company/client approach
- Achievement: Enumerates what the client achieved by implementing recommended solutions.
The integration of continuous feedback into UX design met and exceeded VMware’s goals for the project, gaining accolades from customers, partners, and analysts
4. Webinars
In recent years, webinars have emerged as an unrivaled lead generation tool for B2B marketers, with 73% of attendees becoming qualified leads. Webinars allow content creators to showcase the best of what they have to offer in an interactive multimedia format where attendees can ask questions to help them make informed purchase decisions.
ActualTech Media
ActualTech Media develops, promotes, and hosts custom hot-topic tech webinars for B2B tech marketing clients. Orchestrating multi-vendor webinars with industry-leading vendors and experts, ActualTech Media brings vendors and the right audiences together. In the example webinar below, Kubernetes Data Loss & Security Breaches, content writers and developers can find an instructive example of an engaging technical presentation involving multiple industry authorities.
5. Blog Articles
Blog articles are overwhelmingly one of the most sought-after types of content by B2B buyers—the tech world included. Nearly 90% of B2B buyers prefer web search as their primary starting point for content consumption, which more often than not leads them to topic-focused blog posts written by B2B sellers.
Even as you expand to include a wider variety of content, don’t forget an active blog as the lynchpin of your strategy. After all, you can share other types of content on your blogs (think embedded videos and e-books or whitepapers linked in CTAs, for example). At the same time, you’ll be driving more traffic to your website and increasing your overall brand presence.
ActualTech Media
At ActualTech Media, we maintain two active blogs — one technical, and one focused on marketing our brand. Both offer valuable insights, but for audiences with different search intent.
Our technical blog covers IT-focused topics and is geared specifically toward those who understand industry language.
Our marketing blog is focused on capturing audiences who need our solutions, and may or may not be the actual techies at their organizations.
That said, both blogs serve to establish our industry expertise and let our audiences know we have the knowledge and experience they expect to see from a tech content provider.
Multi-Vendor Webinar Lead Generation with ActualTech Media
At ActualTech Media, our team of webinar lead generation experts helps you connect your content with your target audience and generate quality leads. Present back to back with the biggest vendors in your niche and reap the benefits of post-event, hot-lead reporting analytics.
At the same time, we’ll help you create a comprehensive content library to position you as the go-to expert in your field — one that includes ebooks, tech and executive brief papers, videos, infographics, blog articles, and more.
Contact our sales team to learn more about ActualTech Media’s unique B2B content marketing solutions.
