B2B content marketing companies are helped by Semrush, which has utilized B2B content marketing as the lead generation channel for many years, entirely with in-house resources.

The irony is that Semrush promotes it's SaaS SEO toolkit platform to SEO consultants and content marketing agencies to guide their keyword research and competitive analysis.

I sat down with Anna Lebedeva, Head of Growth Marketing at Semrush and she opened the playbook into their B2B content marketing strategy.

Her goal is to position Semrush as the best way to automate the optimization-based part of content marketing. The value, she says, is offloading the the quant work to Semrush and focus on creative content marketing, collaborating with coworkers and developing new business.

Table of Contents

Is Content Marketing Indispensable for Global B2B Marketing?

What are the Best Ways to do B2B Content Marketing?

How Do I Find Topics for B2B Content Marketing?

How to Do Curated B2B Content Marketing

Is Content Marketing Overtaking Digital Marketing?

How To Generate B2B Leads with Content Marketing

Sales Funnel Optimization for B2B Marketers

What is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B Customer Journey Mapping

What B2Bs Blog About

One-to-One vs One-to-Many Marketing

Global B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Anna is responsible for driving worldwide demand. B2B content marketing strategy is not one size fits all.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

She localizes her approach to each market. And she starts by reviewing local blog posts and other types of B2B content marketing to see what resonate.

By starting with a media audit in the local language, she sees what topics are popular. She uses Google Translate to get the gist of what's people are saying that market.

The SEMrush blog publishes posts in 7 languages.

She's interested in seeing, at high level, what the topics are so she can tailor her content creation for each audience.

Then, she tries to get a sense of how knowledgeable the majority of B2B marketers are in that geographic area about search engine optimization. That way, she knows who to create relevant content for.

B2B Content Marketing in Brazil

In Brazil, digital marketers are great at the process of high quality content creation. They know how to develop rich buyer personas and generate engaging content for their ideal customer profile.

Photo by Agustín Diaz on Unsplash

But when it comes to the more technical aspects of SEO, they're a little less experienced. She entered the Brazial market with content marketing oriented material.

B2B Content Marketing in Northern Europe

In Northern Europe, like Scandinavian countries and Germany, digital marketers want technical information. And this makes repurposing B2B content developed for English speaking audiences, who are more interested in qualitative information, ineffective.

You can't just translate content developed for the US and UK into Scandinavian languages or German because these audiences demand quantitative back up. She focuses on creating technical content for Northern Europe.

B2B Content Marketing in Australia

When SEMrush creates content that specifically addresses the Australian market, instead of just repurposing content for the US and UK markets, Aussies appreciate it. Most marketers just rehash their English language B2B content created for Australia and New Zealand.

Anna says Australia is the most appreciative market she's developed, probably because they're so far away geographically from everyone else. When content marketers develop material specifically addressing their needs, they absolutely gravitate to that provider.

Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash

In many niche B2B categories, Australia is an under served market. Whereas the US is developed and mature with respect to digital marketing and SEO, Australia is a bit more nascent.

That's not say Australia doesn't have its share of digital marketing thought leaders says Anna. There are a number of top SEOs in Australia.

But for most part, digital marketing is much less evolved in Australia than it is in the US.

B2B Content Marketing in the US

The US is the most advanced digital marketing market. She didn't say this, but my guess is its more a result of the US leading the global IT industry. Although with China taking the lead in the artificial intelligence industry, we could see that lead dwindle.

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

Purchasing decisions happen faster and sales cycles are shorter in the US than anywhere else in the world. That's why it's the leading economy, Anna says.

In comparing the US to Australia, Anna says the US digital marketing industry is mature and very competitive. If you're looking to start a digital marketing agency, she says Australia's the market to go to because there's much less competition.

From a global audience standpoint, Anna says basic introductory "101" and "How To" content performs best for SEMrush.

What are the Best Ways to do B2B Content Marketing?

Competition for traffic is fierce online.

So unless your content is the best content, it's not going to rank on page one in search results.

And if doesn't rank on page one, no one is going to see it.

Seventy-seven percent of purchasing decisions start on Google. If you don't get found there, you can't be considered. And you can't make the short list.

I remember one time getting a call from a guy who said he'd pay me anything if I could get him to rank first for the phrase "language translation."

Photo by Benjamin Dada on Unsplash

I searched it and Google Translate come up first.

Then, I checked out his site. It was a chains of schools that taught people to speak English as a second language.

I told him if he wants to rank first for "language translation," he needed to build a better site that Google Translate.

But that's not why he called. He liked his website and didn't want to change it. He just wanted to come up first for "language translation."

Needless to say, as much as I'd like to be paid anything, I didn't take the job. Becuase that's not how search engine optimization works.

You can't pour some special sauce on your existing website and make it come up first. You have to actually improve the quality of the content (text, images, video, layout) on your website.

It's all about having the best content for that search query. Develop the best content for a search term and you'll come up first.

It's a lot work. But it's worth it. Becuase organic traffic is more qualified and converts at a higher rate.

How Do I Find Topics for B2B Content Marketing?

Ann and the SEMrush B2B content marketing team use Quora extensively to see which problems are trending.

A search for "content marketing" on Quora shows which questions are trending on that topic.

I like to use Reddit as well, myself.

A search for "content marketing" on Reddit.

She also likes following the Twitter accounts of SEO industry thought leaders. When it comes to questions around SEO, the SEMrush Twitter account maintains lists to see what experts are talking about.

If experts are talking about similar topics, that means those topics are popular.

@SEMrush Twitter Lists

And they also use their own tool, SEMrush to see what people search for. There's a topic research section where you can actually see which questions people are asking Google.

They also invest a lot in talking to their customers. They go to industry events and schedule customers meetings. She calls customers on the phone. And Anna says this is one of the most important inspirations for their content marketing program.

But across the board, she says entry level SEO content always performs the best. They publish mostly 101 guides and how to tutorials to help new customers utilize and be successful with their products.

For SaaS companies, keeping clients is as important as getting them. To circumvent churn, she focuses on publishing a ton of content for new SEOs to drive product utilization.

These are articles about the basics of SEO and content marketing. And the basic of digital marketing in general.

How to Do Curated Content Marketing

Eighty percent of the posts that run on the SEMrush blog are written by outside experts, most of who are customers. They write expert opinion pieces that appeal to advanced SEOs. The other 20% are product oriented articles by their SEMrush content team.

So the SEMrush content team invites experts to write some of the posts. And SEOs seeking the implied endorsement of an article on the SEMrush blog submit posts on their own as well.

The experts and unsolicited authors don't get paid to write for the SEMrush blog. But they get the visibility of an article they wrote on a high profile site. And they get a link from the SEMrush blog back to their website.

Links from one site to another are called "back links."

Like footsteps in the sand, hyperlinks tell Google which sites people are going to and think are important.

All the back links from the SEMrush blog get tagged with a "nofollow" reference. That tells Google not to associate the linked to site with the SEMrush domain.

No follow links have less value from an SEO perspective, but they're still valuable.

But even though guest contributors don't get any link authority from SEMrush.com, they still get published on a prestigious blog, and that has value. Plus, these are valid links that drive qualified traffic.

From the guest contributor's perspective, writing for the SEMrush blog is an earned media tactic. The more prestigious the site they publish on, the more credibility they earn.

The prospect of earning a post on the SEMrush blog is enticing enough that they enjoy a steady stream of submissions.

In the early days,