B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist

A great workbook to think through. While straightforward, it makes you answer the obvious questions that have not been addressed before.

Been a fan since I read the B2B Content Marketing Workbook and again, you haven’t disappointed.

Well done, you keep raising the bar

A brilliant, clearly structured approach to creating compelling content. Any organisation that follows these guidelines will inevitably attract, engage, qualify and convert many more of the right sort of prospects, while having fun and standing out from the crowd. Top marks!

Mike, Andrew & Bob — THANKS for your early validation.

I get a bit nervous whenever we release a new piece to the market and your kind words really made my day!

This really is an amazing piece of content. A complete roadmap to success. Everything you need to implement a killer content strategy for your company is mapped out in this piece in a really logical fashion. It’s a must have for anyone looking to grow both their traffic and their sales.

Well done guys !!

Strong stuff, and good to see content promotion included as part of the planning and strategy. Are there some links at the bottom of page 25 that were intended to be functional? Minor stuff…

Thanks Kieran — you made my month!

And thanks Ed — for catching those broken links! Much appreciated. Fix imminent.

This is excellent Doug. You had me at check-list but the book is so much more. It’s jumped straight to the top of our team’s must reads. Every team is going to find a copy of this on their desks this morning ready for discussion in our next academy session.

Love this. Love it. Makes me feel excited about my job again. This isn’t just educational it’s actionable. You guys deserve every success.

This is a really useful tool. A very thorough “pense-bête” (French for reminder or memory jogger – literally “think-stupid”). Well done and thank you. You just made my life easier. 🙂

Very well done! I particularly like the integration of the best of user experience, content strategy and content marketing. I’ll explore the workbook and manifesto during the next week or so. Thanks!

Very helpful. The velocity examples at the bottom of each page were much appreciated to help visualize what you described above.

Love this book. There is a lot of theory out there but fabulous to be stepped through the ‘how to’. Of course the tricky thing is the doing…

Gary, Robin, Gillian, Valeri, Ari and Danielle — thanks so much for the feedback.

We’re thrilled the Checklist is finding its audience.

We’ll summarise our experiences with the Checklist campaign in our “Diary of a Content Pimp” blog series. So do check back.

First installment:
http://velocitypartners.com/blog/diary-of-a-content-pimp-1-the-kick-off/

Very pleased to get great information in such a comprehensive guide! thanks

Well done, gentlemen and ladies. Practical as sin and fun to read.

Tremendous. Love the examples of how you’d apply each page to your own marketing. Blogging about this to the world next week!

Great job. How do analysts, journalists & evangelists fit into your persona roles? Are they just another target audience even though you don’t want them to buy?

Loving Velocity’s approach to content at the moment. So much energy and candour – combined with the metrics/measurement focus that every client needs to see. Particularly enjoyed the blog post: http://velocitypartners.com/blog/content-marketing-diary-goals-metrics-fears/

Thanks Raquel and Jim — much appreciated.

Chris, thanks and let us know when you blog.

Louise – Yes, we do make personas for analysts/bloggers/influencers and treat them as a target audience (though often not the prime target).

Natalie — huge compliment coming from you — we love your work!

Doug – I love the content that Velocity churn outs and this one’s no exception. This guide is straightforward, practical, yet full of personality — just like you you fellows at Velocity!

This is the best, most concise and practical guide I’ve seen for people who want to do effective B2B content marketing.

Not only is the content helpful, but the visual design helps readers digest the key points quickly.

It’s every bit as good as the other outstanding content produced by Velocity Partners. And it’s got likable personality gushing from every pore.

Why don’t more B2B companies consider “likability” and “helpfulness” as essential elements of their brand?

Thanks for VP for another great example of how to do it right.

Thanks Stephanie and Dave!
I do think a bit of personality is hugely under-rated (and under-practiced) in B2B.
Glad it hit the mark.
(The danger is always that you might stray over the line into ‘cute’ We hate cute.)

This is a great website. You guys do good work! I am guessing you developed the website yourself? What a fantastic way to build a Double Opt-In list! This makes for a good case study.

James Dean Waryk

100% believer that content is king. The recent actions of Google prove this. Having a sequence of check lists is a great way of achieving objectives. A key stage is getting buy-in so that content is created on time and willingly. Thanks for a useful tool. (I’m dedicated to creating just that for other marketing & sales activities).

Sorry for the delay in responding Doug but i’m a really slow reader. This is great because you’ve taken a very complex thing and made it simple not easy to do bravo!..I also enjoyed the word piffle. A* to the Velocity school of marketing.

James — yes, we did our own website — thanks for noticing! (And opting in!)

Glenn – I agree with the importance of buy-in. We do a workshop before any major content marketing program that helps get key stakeholders up to speed.

Andy – Thanks. Slow readers are the best readers. And yes, the word piffle is addictive.

Sitting in a Moscow hotel waiting for my customer to show – and you’ve kept me engaged for 15 minutes AND made me watch your video… just when I thought I’d got my content from hopeless to reasonable, oh dear, MORE work. Thank you.

Thanks Peter. Hope your client showed up and glad to have helped you kill the time!

Hey Doug
It’s surprising that so many people are talking about content marketing, but there aren’t so many people going about it in a sensible, structured way. This is the kind of guide that helps to correct that imbalance. Not only that, but the reaction from the people above proves the effectiveness of the your own content marketing – so it’s not only a guide but a great case study of how these things can work really well if done properly. And that’s coming from a competitor 🙂
Cheers, John

Thanks John — you’re always really generous with your feedback. Much appreciated. We need more ‘gentleman competitors’ in this game!

And how did you do that smiley emoticon?

@Stan Woods

IMHO, the style you use in your follow-up nurturing mail is way too odd ball to work!
You’ll never get me to do *any* of those things – especially not post a comment – using language like that!

Cheers, Colm

Colm
Ha! our evil plan is working. Take this as a profuse apology. B2B marketing as you rightly point out should never be odd ball. Heaven forfend that we should ever be accused of that.

A very helpful, systematic approach. Bravo.

A very useful workbook and I will be taking some time to go through it properly myself and also with my colleagues.

I’ve downloaded this twice now in 12 hours. It’s that good.

Thank you for creating this and sharing with the B2B Marketing community. Velocity has been able to integrate a number of different components to content marketing success, summarize into a visually appealing and easy to follow guide, and take the fear out of what can be an overwhelming process. Bravo and well done!!

This is an amazing work of art that succinctly captures what content marketing is all about. Thanks for such great work!

It’s big and fat and packed with valuable info. The style and presentation makes it easy and fun to read (if not to put in practice). Velocity is again practising what it preaches.

Thanks so much for this! It has been really helpful 🙂

I have a question regarding the different matrices and the editorial calendar/schedule…where do you begin and how do you piece all of these different documents together? I have the target buying stages and trigger events which I started and now I am drafting an editorial calendar. I like the idea of the trigger events, but is it necessary to do both the buying stages matrix and the trigger events matrix? And when you have both of these how do you tie this in to the calendar? ….thanks!

Thanks Nick, Erica, Rod, Erin, John & Ruth — much appreciated!

Amanda:
No, you don’t need to do the Trigger Events matrix as well as the Buying Stages.
Sometimes we do both — but often one or the other takes precedence.

For bigger projects, we might have two or three Editorial Calendars, each with a different view. So there might be one that looks at all content by target audience; another by topic or product; another by issue or trigger event. It helps us see that we’ve covered everything we set out to cover in the Goals and Target Audiences sections.

In general, all the lists are guides — use them if they’re helpful and leave them out if not.

Exactly what I needed to convince my peers and VP’s who still think products and sales are all you need to be successful, and marketing is a necessity that binds the two together. Not in this day and age!

I love this. Practicing what you preach! Sweet.

Love it. Slapping this on the desk in our digital workshop tomorrow. This will really get us talking and thinking. I’m actually quite excited!

nice shot Chuck and a good way to enhance the day to day work to be done especially for juniors , the whole pict and some nice draws … you make it !

Another cracking content marketing piece from Velocity, I must have missed it first time round. The Editorial Calendar takes me back to my publishing days, who’d have thought clients would ever need to use one. Love the graphics, the atomisation graphic particularly since a visual representation is the best way to explain anything that’s complex, and atomisation is…

Great piece. The checklist is excellent. I like that you include Outbound along with Search and Social. Also, we don’t see the word, “piffle” enough these days. Thanks!

Well…here in the B2B marketing, we all know that it’s never “sexy”, but the truth is, it’s going to outgrow the traditional marketing at some point.

In the Baltic States, we still have shortage of clear, up to date and innovatively presented information that would actually be useful.

The simple, yet really helpful guides presented by the cool marketinians here are useful.

Good job, guys! Thanks a lot

Very cool and organized stuff!

WOW Thank you so much. This will help me a lot. I’m starting with my first Startup that is a Marketing B2B Agencie in Argentina, and I think that is the first one in Latin América, and with all these big contents that you are creating will help me a lot to make to understant to the companies what is the difference between the traditional marketing (for them Marketing B2C) and the Marketing B2B Thanks a lot!

A thought-provoking document that could be used to develop actionable marketing plans — plans that put customer-centric, content-based strategy at the centre of the planning process(note UK spelling here — some of us Yanks are sensitive to our audiences :)).

A really useful workbook for people who get content marketing, packed with useful reminders and hints and tips about all the things you know you should be doing but probably aren’t… all delivered in a style that makes you smile. Nice one Velocity.

Very easy to read and “hits the nail on the head”

Just tweeted this with my thought: EXCELLENT.
Great to see you discussing Content Marketing in a context which goes beyone Video!
#ContentIsKing

* beyond
😉

Well done! Extremely practical and useful.

Great guide. really enjoyed. thank you for your efforts

Great idea, great design – thank you!

This is great – I’ve printed a copy and will be handing it out to colleagues to get them to fill in. Time for us to hone in and focus on our B2B marketing strategies, and this will be the tool we use!

I’m reading the Diary of a Content Pimp (http://velocitypartners.com/blog/content-marketing-diary-goals-metrics-fears/) and since you asked so nicely, I’m going to try and help you blow your comments metric out of the water!

(I did promote the checklist on Twitter without any begging, so I don’t feel like I’m cheating by also doing this.)

Thanks for the B2B checklist. I like the simple steps with nice graphics to help me quickly find the information on a specific topic. I printed a copy, while it sat for a minute at the printer, someone had already started to glance over it. Looking forward to using it in 2013!

really v v helpful.

Absolutely Priceless… well done guys, and thanks for putting this together and sharing it. Great checklist and thought starter for marketing and connecting with audience. Every business should have a copy! Thanks again!

This is both an excellent “how-to” guide for B2B content marketers and a fine example of content marketing itself. (Suggestion: Print out the “Five Parting Principles” and post it in every cubicle, office and meeting room where content marketers think.) I also enjoyed the document’s design and bits of humor throughout. Thanks Velocity!

Thanks so much John, Deb, Kris, Des, Dan… and all comments above.
Much appreciated.
We worked hard on this one and it’s fantastic to know it’s helping fellow content marketers.

Thank you! This is a very practical document, and I’m looking forward to putting it to work in 2013. I’m so glad that a thread of content led me here.

Does anyone know where the download link is gone? I can fill in my information but I can;t see a link to then download it

Sorry, ignore my last comment, I refreshed the page and the Submit button appeared 🙂

jolly good read. love the voice. great tactical guide to developing a strategy. Well done!!

The very fact that I clicked, landed, read and commented, shows just how effective a good content strategy works. One of the best resources I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot!
Very well done…thanks!

Thank you for this checklist! It is extremely practical, and my colleagues and I also appreciated the way it was written. Now we only need to put this into practice!

Only just discovered you guys, big fan already!

Very useful checklist, and really liked how you had forms for me to fill out in addition to just the top level idea.

This is a very valuable checklist that covers all area’s of Content Marketing. Allot of work though, even with the helpful forms provided in this document. I would say out source parts of the work you are not so good at. That leaves you to concentrate on the bits you rock in yourself. If you are willing to put the time and effort in, you’re content marketing strategy is set-up for success. Great list of resources and helpful forms that help to crack your mind 🙂

I hope my competitors don’t read this 😀

Awesome. I’m ready to work on it.

Really good stuff! Thank you!

Really interesting and stimulating questions posed and answered. This checklist has given me a deeper understanding of how to market current projects, thanks very much velocity, fantastic job.

Great job. Can’t wait to see the content that comes out about the ROI and outcomes of this.

A great read. Liked your presentation. In fact, I am going to make use of it in one of my tutorials for my Agribusiness management students and examine how it relates to New Zealand agribusiness sector, and how the take-home messages relate to New Zealand scenarios. Kind regards.

Really good advice, useful for all people struggling to break through that barrier.

Very helpful and easy to read, I will make good use of this.

Thanks for this great gift, Doug. It’s really thorough and includes a few things I’ve missed on my own checklist. I ask for goals but never thought to suggest some of the important goals for a client. That will definitely expand the conversation and help me get a better result.

Easy on the eyes and easy to read. Thanks!

I read this previously but just came back to it. What I’m loving:

-font
-tone / style
-incredible spirit of generosity
-entirely useful content
-fun to read presentation

Thank you!

Excellent checklist guys, and a great template, especially for in-house marketers new to content marketing.

Love your content. “Your design is my style”

Grammar Error Found: Page 2
You forgot an “is”

This *is the era of
Content Strategy
and it will separate the pros from
the amateurs.

Loved this! Very easy to digest and apply. Fantastic guidance. Thanks so much!

Nice to have all these tips in one place. Very comprehensive! And, you are achieving at least 4 of your goals with me – a comment, I’m going to now go download the B2B guides, and will share too

Really useful guide for creating a successful content marketing strategy – thanks very much!

And a gazillion thank yous from the bottom of my heart!

Excellent resource, I wish I’d have come across this before, would’ve featured it on the Roundup I did at Kapost: http://marketeer.kapost.com/2013/12/the-best-content-marketing-posts-of-2013/

GREAT CONTENT! RESPECT!

This checklist is awesome!
I liked your language=)

Very comprehensive and inspirational. I guess, it barely lacks anything. It’s so consistent and has a lot of details. Maybe only one thing, more factual examples.

Thanks for an amazing info!

Thank you for this information. Very concise and aligns with what I love to talk about – the outbound prospecting channel. One thing… your PDF links to a 404 page: http://velocitypartners.com/#newsletter

I have to say that.I don’t do that much but you guys, you are really amazing.You solved my problem, your brand created awaraness for me and trust me, i will share your articles everywhere!

This is the most practical, straight to the point, usable guide I have read in a long time.

Thanks for being so practical, clear and concise. In a world of information overload, it’s great to come across a cut-through step-by-step guide like this.

I have the pleasure of having just recently discovered my unknown passion for blogging and content marketing, and it is amazing discoevering the infinite heaps of good advice that is out there. But the best thing is coming across something that I feel speaks directly to me – and that’s the case with this Checklist! I love the layout, too! Although, I might have spent a little less space on the funny headlines and a little more on making the text-bits easier to read 😉

So often you know what you need to do, but having it laid out step by step in this format is invaluable. Thanks!

Excellent guide! Concise and informative while maintaining a sense of humor.

Love the ebook, thanks for sharing! Just wanted to make one suggestion – since it’s a printable book, maybe the separating pages shouldn’t be full-color, since we try and preserve ink. Thanks again for the great guide!

Had to leave some feedback…. All positive! Clear, simply put, excellent graphics that are engaging. Thank you for sharing!

Excellent resource, loved the content audit approach! Thank you for creating & sharing!

Browsed through and it’s really good comprehensive, step by step guide, with best practices that simplifies a broad and complicated topic.

Insightful and useful a great read thanks

Excellent guide and very comprehensive. A great place to really organize and strategize a thorough marketing plan. Thank you very much.

I just want to thank you folks at VM for this incredible resource. My company has dabbled in content marketing for a while, but this guide is helping us become strategic about it.

Cheers, and keep up the great work.

Amongst other things, I teach marketing to undergrads and I want to commend you on one of the best, most insightful and practical docs I’ve seen in a very long time. I hope you don’t mind but I will pass this on (with full credit) to as many as I can. Collaboration is king, and you’ve proven that by sharing this. Well done!

Thank you for a wonderful checklist. Really really appreciate the hard work you have done for this. Was wonderfully helpful.

Just the thing I was looking for. A easy to read, insightful piece of work that will actually help me have a plan! Thank you. x

Love your work! However I’m feeling a little rejected by your newsletter sign up page – have tried a number of times and I jsut can’t seem to subscribe. I get a thankyou message, but I’ve never received an email newsletter. Sad Face.

Love your work! However I’m feeling a little rejected by your newsletter sign up page – have tried a number of times and I just can’t seem to subscribe. I get a thank you message, but I’ve never received an email newsletter. Sad Face.

Very informative Guide!!
Content marketing future is looking bright and I think companies must invest more on content marketing if they are taking online marketing seriously. Good content can generate solid leads.

Thank you! It was great help. What I most loved about it was how you presented the information. Brilliant and helpful.

This provides really good insight. excellent information! Thank you

This information is really amazing and informative .thanks a lot for sharing it I m desperately looking forward for the next post from you

http://curatti.com/b2b-centric-strategy/

Great resource guys and well done.

Wow. Great guide you got here. Thanks for sharing. I’ve just downloaded it. I like the look of your list; very creative. Keep it up.

Awesome blog post From first have experience, I can say the more high quality and relevant content you have, the better your search rankings are across the board become. My site has tripled it’s website traffic in the last two years and three blog posts I wrote on Google My Business rankings get about 1000 monthly hits between then. Then I have reviews on YellowPages online marketing and Rogers Outrank. All in all, the content is geared towards my market which is out their searching about such topics. I then try and get my clients to understand that and try and develop a solid content strategy for them!

I just finished the eBook and glad to notify you that I have learned a lot of new things which will definitely help me to grow as a content marketer. You know generating engaging contents is a type of big challenge ever on Digital Marketing. So content isn’t just king its kingdom!!!

A great article to kickoff 2016! This will be very helpful for businesses and marketers who are looking into boosting their content marketing this year. and Thanks For Sharing Such A Informative Post

Such a nice post, keep up the fantastic work

great article with good info…

Thanks!

Good Article. Thanks for sharing it

This is a great content marketing strategy checklist. Very useful. Thanks for sharing!

I like the points that you mentioned in your workbook, it helps to create a pertinent content that can be useful for users to earn some revenue from it. Well, I also read where you can convert the article into the revenue. It is here https://www.blurbpointmedia.com/content-native-advertising-conversion/

Thanks for sharing a nice article.

Thank you for a wonderful checklist. Really appreciate the hard work you have done for this. Was wonderfully helpful

Thanks!

Simply brilliant ! What else ?

Nice Post thanks for sharing with us and your blog design are excellent.

Thanks for sharing this informative post.

Informative and well designed way of communication liked it

Great checklist with actionable tips for effective B2B content approach to help improve conversions.

Excellent and useful checklist on BtoB content marketing. Thanks for sharing this knowledge with us.

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing

I just scanned it and it got me like, “this is impressive!” Now, I can’t wait to read it later after work. Thanks a bunch!

Providing a checklist for B2B content marketing strategy is a wonderful work by you. It helps me to more explore my knowledge about content marketing, as I’m a blogger I always want more knowledge to read your post help me to find some useful ideas.
If you are interested in this topic then you can also read more about Hottest B2B Content Marketing Trends and Statistics in 2019. I hope my post helps you to increase your knowledge.

Thanks for writing this article…

I feel this check-list may have missed a piece. (or at least this is the impression skimming through it at 24.00…)

I would expect a starting point by checking about the Positioning of the company on the market.

You know: “Positioning” – Al Ries and all that stuff…

Without “Positioning” I am not able to copywrite.

Or better: I can – but it becomes flat. You may color with some nice “idea” or “graphics” … but will still be flat.

Giving a big advantage to competition…

But the checklist is fine. Love it.

Thx a lot.

What does atomization mean? I haven’t heard the term before.

thank you velocitypartners for giving me wonderful information

I found this very helpful. Doug, can you please tell me Is content marketing indispensable for B2B marketing?

Such an informative post. Thanks for sharing.

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Great post about B2B Content Marketing. Thanks for sharing this creative and valuable content with us.

Thanks for sharing the Amazing content marketing article. This is a really knowledgable post. Content is very important for a better way to represent our business. Content is king.

Amazing, I like that content which is from velocity.
.Thank you

Hi there,
Thanks for sharing this resource. Keep it up.

Thanks for your valuable information on how to write effective content to gain traffic. This is really valuable to us. For more knowledge on digital marketing, you can visit us at http://www.technoed.in/. Technoed is a digital marketing institute in Meerut that offers detailed study in digital marketing along with google certification and 100% job assistance.

Very usefull. Thanks for sharing it for free. Not too much information of B2B Marketing available in spanish.
Maybe an opprtunity for you??? It would be very appreciate!

Your writing is perfect!!!
You gave me great joy!!!
Howdy! I simply need to offer a gigantic go-ahead for the decent data you have here on this post. I can be returning again to your blog for extra soon.

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Thanks for sharing this informative article for blog commenting.

Thank You For Sharing Such A Wonderful information.

Love this piece. A lot of people underestimate the role of content marketing in the overall picture and you cover it well here. Thanks for sharing!

Great Insight. Appreciate your effort.