It’s easy to treat copywriting as an afterthought in B2B marketing. If people need a product, they’ll find it. And if your product is good, they’ll buy yours. Right?
If only.
Everyone has a basic grasp of language. If you also have strong knowledge of your product, the assumption is that you should be able to clearly convey its benefits in a way that your audience will care about. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. The end result is a lot of marketing copy that just fills space but doesn’t convert. In an increasingly crowded marketplace, this just creates noise. And that’s a cue for prospective customers to disengage.
‘Copy’ refers to any text written for a promotional purpose. This could be a tagline on a billboard, an email to subscribers, a video script for an ad campaign, or simply the text that appears on your website.
Copywriting comes with a bunch of subtle rules and best practices that differentiate it from everyday communication. But a few key questions should keep you on the right track:
Let’s unpack what good copywriting actually looks like. Here’s your crash course to improve the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns in an instant.
Contents:
B2B is ‘business-to-business’ – referring to industries that create products primarily for business use. For example, things like accounting software, office furniture, or freight management.
B2C, in contrast, is ‘business-to-consumer’, which accounts for pretty much everything else used by individuals in their day-to-day lives. Products like food, alcohol, clothing and so on.
The common perception is that the tone of voice for B2C marketing is more relaxed and ‘fun’. Whereas B2B is more formal and ‘boring’ by nature. There’s an element of truth to this. For example, beer branding will often aim to simply create a vibe. Maybe it’ll also convey product features like low carbs or alcohol content. But mostly it’s about conveying a sense of sociability and relaxation that consumers can project themselves into.
B2B brands typically have a few more hoops that need to be jumped through, with more technical product offerings that need to be explained. This complexity can potentially weigh down the copy from a ‘vibes’ perspective. This means B2B copywriting tends to require more research to understand audience personas, including motivations and pain points.
B2B purchase decisions also tend to take longer, due to there being more stakeholders involved, along with the need for budget approvals and so on. The role of copy in nurturing leads and justifying the business case therefore takes on added significance.
A few things worth noting: In B2B marketing, your audiences are still people. Even if they have a business agenda, the same principles apply for engaging them. Copy still needs to be concise and attention-grabbing. If anything, you need to be aware that you’re not just winning the attention of individual consumers. You also need to convey a clear business case that they can take to other stakeholders within their business.
Will your product save money for businesses? If so, how? And how much? Will your product save them time or complexity so they can put more resources towards other tasks? And so on.
When it comes to digital copy, it’s as much to do with navigation as it is about persuasion.
Good copywriting – much like design – is ultimately a means of wayfinding for customers. It acknowledges a consumer need, contextualises the value of the solution, and guides them intuitively towards the next step.
Let’s take another look at those questions I mentioned earlier.
Good copywriting understands the needs, wants, and challenges of its audience. Obviously, you can’t talk to everyone at once. Your content needs to be targeted, without becoming so niche that it becomes irrelevant or too niche for people to engage with.
For any piece of content you create, you should have a clear idea of which audience segment you’re targeting. It could be a general audience. It could be for people who work in a certain industry or a certain job type. Or it could be for people who live in a particular region. Their common signifiers will dictate how you speak to them.
A very simple example: If you’re creating organic content for your social media channels, this will primarily be seen by people who already follow your account. That means they’re more likely to be familiar with your brand and have an active interest in your products. If you’re creating sponsored content to run as ads, this will appear in front of a less invested audience, so this content may need to be pitched at a different level. And if you want content to be shareable, it needs to be entertaining and/or informative, rather than salesy.
Audiences have different expectations in different settings. They engage with content in different ways. For example, right now you’re reading a blog post on TMP’s website. That suggests you have an interest in this topic and are willing to engage with long-form content (or skim it at the very least). The purpose and value of this medium is to provide a relatively deep dive into a particular topic.
If you were reading an email newsletter from TMP, however, you might not be actively engaged in this topic, so you might only get a bite-sized blurb to see if you wanted to click through and read more without wasting your time in the body of that email.
On social media, no one wants to read a long caption, so get your point across concisely. Whether you’re posting an image or a video, the visual asset should do the heavy lifting in terms of engagement, while the caption should only be used to complement that hook with a CTA and/or value-adding context.
Even if you’re focusing on primarily visual mediums, copy still has an important role to play. Arguably even more so, because less copy means it has to work harder. For example, videos tend to auto-play silently on social media by default. Strategic copy – subtitles aside – could be what gets someone to turn up the sound and engage with the content. This could be a tantalising question or headline posed at the start of the video.
That said, copy in videos should be minimal. If someone is speaking, or you’ve recorded a voiceover, the copy within the video should align closely with what the speaker is saying, and only used sparingly to emphasise key points.
If it’s a paid ad, copy carries even more responsibility to earn engagement, because it’s not something that users are actively following. You probably only have a couple of seconds – tops – to make someone care about your brand in a sponsored ad placement. You need to find the most attention-grabbing angle to present your product.
Typically, the structure of any content creation will be:
The trick is to make it feel seamless and authentic, in order to tap into prospects’ needs and wants. It’s a balancing act. If you get too specific, you narrow the audience that you’re speaking to. If you’re too generic, it’s less likely to engage.
Often, brands fall into the trap of trying to act like they know everything about you. But it’s easy to miss the mark with copy that comes across as forced or insincere.
Ultimately, regardless of the channel or depth of your content, this basic structure will be present. The problem sets the context of a challenge that your audience will recognise. The solution sets up your product as the most effective way to address the problem. The CTA gives them a clear next step towards that solution – whether it’s to learn more, make contact with your team, or to make an actual purchase.
There are a few ways to earn attention, including:
Copy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s an extension of your brand. Tone of voice should remain pretty consistent across all the material you produce. Firstly, this creates a stronger sense of brand identity that’s likely to foster more trust and authority as you nurture leads through the marketing funnel. Secondly, this consistency ensures your copy remains aligned to your product and audience expectations.
We’ve all seen big brands trying to be funny or sassy on social media. Or ‘fun’ brands trying to post solemn tributes in the wake of tragic events. The risk/reward ratio isn’t favourable. Brands shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. You don’t need to weigh in on things outside your industry or area of expertise. Stay in your lane and you should be fine.
What’s the point of getting someone’s attention if you don’t give them a clear path to follow?
If you’re trying to convince people to buy your product, create a path for them to do that. If you want them to subscribe to a mailing list, or contact your team, give them the most direct path to do so. Users will inevitably drop off at every step, so the fewer clicks and scrolling required the better. Your call to action should always promise value, and the destination that a CTA button takes users to should reward that click with what they expect to see.
Similarly, too many CTAs on one page can disorient users and not
Sounds simple. But it’s amazing how often this stage of the user journey becomes an obstacle.
It’s easy to fall into bad habits, especially when timelines are tight and resources are limited. Here’s a checklist of common copywriting traps to try and avoid.
❌ Too wordy.
A common mistake in copywriting is to make the text too dense. Trying to say too many things or elevate the tone in an attempt to sound formal. Brevity is important, but so too is rhythm.
Copy isn’t about trying to sound as clever as possible. It’s about being understood and getting to the point. The aim of the game is to create a path between consumer needs and their desired action as concisely as possible. Problem — Solution — Call to action.
❌ Too much hard selling.
Not everyone in your audience is coming in at the same level of knowledge. Some may already be familiar with your brand and product offering. Some may have even made purchases with you previously. Others may be vaguely aware of your brand, while some won’t have heard of you before. You can’t hard sell to everyone.
❌ Ignoring what your audience cares about.
Perhaps the most frequent mistake that brands make is getting too caught up in what they want to say, rather than what their audience wants to hear. Don’t drown them in detail. Be concise. Stay solution-oriented. Speak to their specific pain points. And give them a clear path to take the next desired action.
❌ Incongruous call to action.
Speaking of desired actions, conversion doesn’t always mean a sale. Ultimately, yes, you want people to purchase your product. But there are other objectives that may be more effective along the way.
For example, effective copy might encourage users to ‘learn more’, ‘subscribe’, ‘get a free trial’, or ‘schedule a call’. B2B sales require trust and lead nurturing to increase conversions and encourage repeat business.
❌ Let down by poor UX.
Just as an unappealing headline, or hard-selling CTA might be a cue for disengagement, user experience is just as important. When a user clicks through to a page that doesn’t make sense to them at first glance, they’ll instantly drop off. Good copy is aware of the next steps of the user journey to ensure user expectations are managed and rewarded with every click.
Someone once told me that good copy should act like gravity. Gently pulling prospects down a page — so compelled by their own desires or curiosity that they don’t even notice an external force being exerted. To think about it another way, your copy and user journey is like open-plan architecture, allowing leads to flow effortlessly from room to room.
Here are some tips for more effective copywriting.
✅ Get to the point.
The golden rule for all writing, really. Marketing is interruptive, so don’t waste your audience’s time. Give them solutions. And remember, it’s better to be clear than clever.
✅ Be benefit-driven.
A lot of brands get caught up in what they want to say, rather than what their audience wants to hear. Start with your audience’s needs and work backwards.
✅ Don’t forget the business case.
B2B sales involve multiple stakeholders. You’re not selling to individuals re: ‘ease of use’, you’re
building a ready-made business case for senior decision-makers (e.g. ‘save time & money’).
✅ Clear CTAs & conversion path.
It’s no use winning someone over with a compelling ad if users can’t follow an intuitive path to purchase and/or find out more. CTAs should reflect the copy that comes before it. And the next step in the navigation path should affirm a user’s choice to click.
For example, if you send out an email spruiking price points and discounts on certain products, your CTA should be along the lines of ‘Buy Now’, and clicking that button should take users to a product page where they can directly make an order. If content aims to pique audience curiosity or likely to prompt follow-up questions, a more suitable CTA would be something like ‘Learn More’ or ‘Get In Touch’.
Finally, it’s worth noting that there’s never one definitive answer when it comes to copy. Different hooks or CTAs may be equally effective. While a lot of strategic insight takes place before creating content, that research process doesn’t end when you publish something. Digital copy is a living, breathing thing that you should continue to test and refine to see what resonates best with your audience.
Strategic B2B social media marketing is not just about having an account with a pretty feed that attracts a lot of likes. Nor is it about shoving your products down people’s throats. It’s about using social media strategically to build relationships with your prospects.
B2B social media marketing often falls into the trap of being devoid of personality, out of fear of not appearing ‘professional’ enough. But it’s important to remember you’re not communicating to a business—there’s a real person at the other end of your post you’re trying to reach, human to human.
One of the key differences between B2C and B2B marketing is that the sales cycle is usually much longer for us B2Bs than for B2Cs. We need to spend longer building and nurturing relationships with our prospects. Your sales team can be in contact with someone for a year or more before the sale goes through. If you think about your social media audience as that contact, what conversations would you like to have over the course of that year?
You could argue that building relationships through social media is even more important for B2B brands than for consumer brands.
Social media offers us a place to meet our prospects where they are. A smart B2B social media marketing plan will outline the strategies you’ll use to meet your business goals.
More than half the world is now on social media.
Worldwide, more than 2.7 billion people are on Facebook. More than a billion are on Instagram. LinkedIn has more than 675 million users. Closer to home, Australians spend an average of 1 hour and 47 minutes on social media each day, a figure that has been slowly increasing over the past 8 years.
B2B buyers research before making a purchasing decision and they use social media as part of that research. A LinkedIn study concluded that social media interactions influence 84% of C-level and VP-level buyers before they purchase a product or service.
By ignoring or playing down the importance of social media in our overall marketing plan, we’re handing our competitors the knife to carve off a great slice of pie for themselves.
Despite the prevailing cry of ‘be everywhere’, this is absolutely not true for B2B social media marketing.
B2B social media marketers can and should be far more discerning.
You don’t need to launch a TikTok account just because its popularity is rapidly rising. (Phew! Frankly, my cat’s not that interesting and who’s got time to learn how to dance this week?)
And you don’t have to use every new function of each platform you’re on. It’s OK to be on Instagram and not use Reels for your business.
Use our Customer Research Matrix to help you figure this out and create a clear picture of your ideal customer. When you have great clarity around your target audience, you’ll know where and how your brand should be on social media.
Just like any other business function, don’t bite off more than you can chew. As part of your marketing plan, consider which resources your business has that you can assign to manage your social media presence.
While LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram might be a good fit for your business, if you don’t have the resources and budget to maintain a professional social media presence, show up regularly across your chosen platforms and create fresh content, instead, focus your efforts on the top performing channels and do these well.
There needs to be a good reason for joining a social media channel that aligns to your marketing plan. A hastily set-up and soon-abandoned social profile does not reflect well on a business.
When people visit social media, they’re there to connect with others, be entertained, informed or inspired. They don’t visit their social media channels to be sold to.
Even if sales are your end game, keep in mind that you need to build relationships with people first.
This means your social media accounts should not be self-serving where you push out nothing but promotional posts dipped in sales messages. Otherwise, it will reflect badly on your brand. Promotional posts are fine, so long as they are in moderation and make sense in context.
You should look to educate, entertain, engage or inspire your target audience via your social posts.
Use a mix of social media posts to educate, entertain, engage and inspire
| Educate Share a link to a breaking news story or share an opinion on an industry topic. Share ‘how to’ tips for a common task in your industry. Turn one of your blog posts into multiple social media posts to help build your authority on a certain topic. | Entertain Share a funny meme that highlights a myth or stereotype about your industry. It doesn’t have to be one that you created. Share a video that’s relevant to your audience that you found entertaining or even amusing. Write a personal story that shares a funny experience that relates to your business. | Engage Ask your audience a question about a topic relevant to your industry. Add a poll to a post about a contentious topic in your industry and ask your audience to vote. Ask for help. Share a problem you’re having and ask your audience to solve it. | Inspire Share results another client has gained from working with you. Share a testimonial that outlines how you helped a client overcome a specific problem. Share statistics from your industry that show the positive side of an issue in your industry. |
To avoid appearing too salesy, keep in mind that you’re trying to build a relationship with prospects. B2B social media marketing is still B2-human communication. And because you’re communicating to a real human and not some faceless business brand, your social posts should feel more like a conversation than a billboard.
Your tone of voice should match your brand and position in the market. For example, if you make a utilitarian, no-frills products, then your tone of voice should come across in a similar way — no fuss, informative and functional. If you’re not selling high-end, complex software, don’t try to sound like you are.
If you’re selling data analytics or accounting services, you need to communicate to your prospects in a way that matches your brand and their expectations.
While you can (and should!) give your audience the kind of content they expect from you and in the way they expect it, it’s OK to be creative and try different approaches so long as you remain authentic to your brand. Standing out from your competitors can help your posts get noticed in your prospect’s cluttered feed.
Social media presents an opportunity for us to give our audience a peek behind the curtain and show the human side of our business. It’s where people can see the interesting things we’re working on and get to know us and the other people in our business, better. Consider passing the social media baton to your team members from time-to-time to help humanise your business. It’s a great way to show that there are real people and stories behind your brand. Plus, it keeps your content fresh.
Having a good marketing plan in place will set you up well to create an effective B2B social media strategy.
If you haven’t already identified your core brand pillars (those 4 or 5 top-level categories all your products and services fit under) then take the time to decide what those brand pillars will be. These are the key things you want your business to be known for.
Social media planning is all about working out what you’re going to say and when.
Plan topics and themes under your brand pillars. This will help you streamline your posts by staying focused on those core messages.
Think about important dates in your business—product launches, busy periods, seasonal influences, sales cycle predictions—and plan content to lead up to those events.
Prepare content in batches so you’re not having to scramble for fresh stuff each week. Batching social media posts saves a lot of time. Refer to the educate, entertain, engage, or inspire matrix to produce a good mix of content themes.
Use a social media scheduling tool to line up your posts in advance so they publish automatically across the week or month ahead. Then during the week, you’ll only need to set aside time to respond to comments to encourage more engagement and build those all-important relationships.
While B2B social media marketing might make you feel anxious about creating and executing a plan that perfectly balances a mix of post types that sound authentically like your brand while incorporating your end goal—sales— it doesn’t have to be overly complex.
We’ve prepared a DIY social media calendar to help you create a month’s worth of social media posts aligned to the topics you set under your brand pillars and to ensure you get the right mix of promotional and other post types.
Join the DIY Marketing Project for access to our calendar and plenty of other tools and resources to help you with your marketing.
The key to social media success for B2Bs is to use your authentic voice and let your personality show through while showcasing your knowledge and what you do best.
Keep an eye on your metrics to see which posts get more engagement and which posts don’t. Use these metrics to continually refine your social media calendar.
Use a spelling and grammar checker like Grammarly or ProWritingAid to avoid embarrassing typos that can make you look unprofessional and reflect poorly on your brand. You can hire a graphic designer to set you up with templates that reflect your visual brand and look great, or choose stock images and resize them yourself—we have resizing templates you can use on our DIY Marketing Project platform.
But perhaps the greatest tip is to remember that good B2B social media marketing is all about connecting human to human, not business to business. By showing the human side of your business and offering that personal touch, you’ll have a greater chance of bringing in enthusiastic customers who are on board with what you do.
If you’re a DIY marketer and need inspiration and guidelines to boost your marketing efforts, visit the DIY Marketing Project. You’ll find lots of resources and templates that will help you run your B2B social media marketing campaigns in less time and for better results.
We all know that social media is an essential part of any B2B content strategy. But if you’re posting the exact same thing on every channel, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Each channel has its own unique culture, nuance and audience, and it’s important that you take this into consideration if you want to grow your social presence.
So let’s look at how to do social media marketing for B2B on the most commonly-used channels, by adapting a single content idea and turning it into posts for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
In each of the screenshots we’re using a recent TMP content idea as our example.
LinkedIn is the place where professional conversations happen every day – and for your customers, it’s a chance to put a face to the name. Use your employees’ individual accounts and the company account in tandem to connect with your audience on a new level.
Keep it professional, but don’t be afraid to mix in some of your personal experiences as well. People want to know why you do what you do and why you’re the best at it. More so than on other networks, LinkedIn is about the people that make up a business, rather than faceless corporate accounts just promoting their products and services. Tell people about the causes you support, shout out your staff and talk about the philosophy behind what you do.
LinkedIn’s format and newly-lengthened character limits mean that you can tell a longer story without necessarily needing to add in a bunch of images. People will take the time to read what you write as long as you grab their attention in the first few lines (and make it worth their while to read through).
Your post will be cut off after the first two lines, so make sure your opening is clear and enticing.
We schedule shares and interactions between the official TMP account and Holly’s account to reach a broader audience.
Facebook is for friends, which means you have a chance to connect with your audience on a more human level. Loosen the tie and post a little more informally, Don’t forget to stay true to your brand messaging – demonstrate what makes your business great!
On Facebook, your content will be mixing in the news feed with people’s friends, family, sporting clubs and community groups. Keep this in mind when you’re crafting your Facebook posts – if it’s part of your brand’s tone of voice, sprinkle in a bit of humour, and keep the tone friendly. Add photos to your posts where you can, and keep your posts shorter and snappier than on LinkedIn.
Text posts – character count is basically unlimited
Image posts – square images are good – we shoot for 1200 x 1200
Story size – 1080 x 1920
A chance to go ‘behind the products’, show the people that make your brand what it is and tell some happy customer stories.
Captions come second to the image, but you can definitely enhance your post with a clever or witty caption. Make sure you view both together before posting to check they make sense together. If your image says all you need to say, then keep your caption minimal. If you do need to explain what’s going on, keep it brief and light-hearted. Make the most of your first sentence – as on other networks, the rest will be cut off behind a ‘see more’ button.
Image posts – square (we shoot for 1080 x 1080)
Image captions – 2,200 characters (truncated after 125)
Story size – 1080 x 1920
Many people find condensing complex ideas into bite-sized tweets extremely challenging. The trick is to narrow your focus. Each tweet has one sole purpose – to get clicked! So you don’t need to explain the whole topic – just give enough to spark some curiosity and get that click.
Twitter’s discussion revolves around the news cycle, so where you can, link your content topic to something going on in the world. Twitter has a tone (and set of slang) of its own, so it’s always good to follow a few hashtags to get the idea before you post. You don’t have a lot of room to strike the right tone, so on Twitter you need to be precise with your wording. Any typos or mistakes will be extremely obvious, so proofread a few times before posting.
Characters – 280 (including links)
Images – 1024 x 512
Would you rely on ONE supplier for your entire business model? 😬
I’m guessing probably not…
But many growing B2B businesses are doing just that with their digital marketing tactics. They’re concentrating on Facebook as their main channel for connecting and communicating with customers, and neglecting the rest.
As we’ve seen recently, that tap can be turned off in an instant🚰 and there’s not much you can do about it.
So we’ve been thinking about a few ways you can keep the conversation flowing without relying totally on Facebook – or LinkedIn, or Twitter or Instagram or even TikTok for that matter.
Engaged and targeted email lists are absolute gold dust for marketers. With a bit of time, effort and budget you can segment the contacts in your email list enabling the creation of really targeted email campaigns.
A huge benefit with email marketing is that you own the data. You can export your (opted-in) email list and take it to another platform if your email provider bumps up your rates, shuts down or you just decide you don’t want to use them anymore.
And thirdly, you have direct access to your subscribers’ inbox – often the first place people head when they start their day.
Sending out regular, insightful and valuable emails to your subscribers is a great way to build rapport over time. Some email marketers even monetise their newsletter by charging people to receive a ‘premium feed’ on a platform like Substack.
Another cost-effective way to build an audience, writing articles for a blog is the foundation of most effective content strategies. Once you get the hang of getting your thoughts into words, your articles can give your audience a window into your thoughts and opinions on industry topics, as well as an insight into the culture of your business – a great way for them to decide whether they want to partner with you.
This is especially important in B2B marketing, where sales cycles are often longer and there is a greater emphasis on service and knowledge.
Best of all, a blog is multiple pieces of content just waiting to be set free. Grab the best quotes and turn them into images for Instagram, publish a section on Facebook and LinkedIn or do a quick video summing up what your piece is about – all linking back to your own website where the blog is hosted. Once people are there, you can invite them to sign up to your email list, either by offering a free piece of content or the chance to join your newsletter.
You can capture their details using a form like this:
This is an example of an embedded form. Offer your readers a free download in exchange for their email address. Make sure it’s a high-value piece of content to make it worth their while!
It’s one thing to write a blog, but you also have to promote it. Many content experts say that content marketing is 20% creation and 80% promotion! Make sure you have a thorough marketing plan in place to drive traffic to your blog articles.
If you’re less ‘wordy’ and more of a talker, consider starting your own podcast. This is a popular content format right now, so beware of jumping in just for the sake of it. But if you’re a compelling speaker and you have the means to record and edit audio, it should definitely be on your consideration list.
If you’re wary of just adding another podcast to the pile, remember you don’t have to do the same thing everyone else is doing. Mix up the format – if everyone is doing 30min interviews with industry leaders, consider doing a daily five-minute show that tackles one specific challenge. If you have a network of interesting contacts, try to get them involved as a guest or co-host. If there’s something about your work that’s interesting or quirky, use it – for instance, you could record a quick episode in the car while you’re personally delivering a customer order, if that’s your point of difference.
You don’t need to be restricted to just Apple or Spotify – you can embed the audio on your blog, send it out via your email newsletter and cut up the audio into bite-sized chunks for social media. You can even monetise your podcast via Patreon if it really takes off.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is closely connected to your blog and your website. Making sure your website is well-optimised for search engine robots is a fruitful long-term strategy.
There are two aspects to SEO – on-page and off-page. Let’s look at both quickly.
On-page SEO:
On-page SEO refers to the SEO tactics that are on your website – things that you can actively control.
It includes things like:
On-page SEO isn’t just for Google – it’s better for your customers too. Having a website that’s easy to use and keeps prospects engaged means people will spend more time on your site learning about your business, which Google will favour.
Go for quality over quick fixes. Google’s bots are getting more and more sophisticated, so the old “SEO hacks” don’t work anymore. The best thing to do is make decisions that are best for your end user, and will keep them engaged on your site for as long as possible.
Your ‘technical SEO’ also has to be solid. Double-check that:
Off-page SEO:
Off-page SEO is a little trickier, and harder to control. It’s about your brand’s reputation and authority in your industry.
The biggest off-page SEO tactic is link building. This is where you have other reputable brands linking back to your website – and another reason why it’s so handy to have a good selection of blog articles for other sites to link to.
The ‘holy grail’ of link building is to get a link from a .gov or .edu link, because you can’t just go out and buy one of those domains. You have to earn those links – so that means you need someone within your business who can reach out to these websites and build a natural relationship with them that leads to linking between sites.
Additionally, linking TO those high authority sites is a good idea, because Google sees this as you being more reputable. For example, if you’re talking about crime rates, linking to a .gov site gives you more authority on the subject, as you’re citing official sources.
You can (and should) also do a lot of internal link building – that is, linking between blogs and pages on your own website. If you’re writing a blog and you reference something you’ve written about before, link to it! This tells Google that your site is an expert about one key theme, and all your content is connected.
We’re a big fan of creating mutually beneficial relationships with other businesses that have a similar audience as you but aren’t competitors. You can share the marketing load while both getting the benefits!
Reach out to other businesses and ask if they’d be interested in co-creating some content or doing some joint marketing. What you do will vary depending on your industry and business size, but here are a few ideas:
Be sure to use the detail from tactics 1-4 to squeeze the most value out of any joint marketing you do.
And whichever of these tactics you decide to pursue, here’s your golden rule: Be across as many channels as is practical for your time and budget, but make sure a good portion of that activity is on channels you own.
