In B2B marketing, analysing your competitors’ content can uncover valuable insights to help inspire new ideas, highlight opportunities for differentiation and steer your content strategy in the right direction. It's a great way to make sure your efforts are on track and set up for success.

Here’s how to do a competitor analysis swiftly and accurately in four simple steps:

1. Make a list of your main competitors

The foundation of your competitor analysis is identifying your serious competition, in two stages. First, make a list of your direct competitors; businesses that offer similar products or services to you. Then, expand your list to include any indirect competitors; those who offer different products to you but target the same audience or fulfil a similar need. Consider, as well, any websites that consistently publish content relevant to your industry. These sites can compete for your audience’s attention, so it’s important to track their content and messaging.

2. Seek out any content gaps

Having identified your competitors, delve into their content to see what topics they cover and, more importantly, what influential areas their coverage misses. You’re on the lookout for subjects that are underrepresented or not covered at all, yet are highly relevant to your audience. These gaps become prime opportunities for you to create motivating content to address unmet needs while positioning your brand as a valuable resource. Analyse the formats and depth of their content, too, and consider deploying different formats for greater standout.  

3. Evaluate competitors’ content quality and engagement

Evaluating content quality and engagement involves assessing the depth, accuracy and presentation of your competitors' content. Look at how well they cover topics and whether their content is informative, engaging and visually appealing.

Equally important is analysing their audience engagement by measuring likes, shares, comments and other interactions to gauge what resonates with their (and potentially your) audience. Identify their top-performing content to understand what drives engagement and why, and also analyse underperforming content to learn why certain pieces fail to engage and learn what to avoid from that. The result will be a better grasp of any areas where your content could improve in quality and deeper insight into how you could boost engagement.

4. Plan to do it better

The final step is to pull all this knowledge together and make a plan. If you're going to cover the same topics, make sure you do it better by offering more detail, presenting it more clearly or adding more valuable and influential expertise. This will help you increase the effectiveness of your content, improve your SEO and increase your engagement, delivering a content strategy that’s more effective and competitive.

Let’s get started

At asabell, we specialise in conducting thorough competitor analyses to help you stay ahead of the game. Our team is dedicated to uncovering valuable insights and crafting strategies that give you a competitive edge. Get in touch with us today to learn how we can enhance your content marketing efforts.

In B2C marketing it seems like you can’t turn around without falling into a persona workshop. Hours and hours are spent on constructing detailed personalities for customer segments with names, hobbies and life ambitions.

But B2B is a different field, so can personas have any value in the B2B sphere?  

B2C and B2B are worlds apart

Since many B2C companies or divisions offer goods and services to an extremely fragmented audience, personas are an effective way to bring some focus to the largest groups they’re targeting.

But over in the B2B world, segmentation takes a different form, splitting audiences according to the broader factors around job roles and industry. This isn’t an absolute that applies in every instance; individual job specifications and the challenges of organisations within an industry will vary to some extent. However, this approach is a simple and easily applied route to kick off thinking about the requirements of different groups.

Effective B2B segmentation can accelerate planning

As a result, planning a campaign from a job role and industry position perspective can provide an effective framework for formulating marketing messaging quickly. At the core of this approach is establishing the pain points and challenges that the typical job-role holder faces within their specific remit, as well as the more wide-ranging challenges the organisation is up against. These organisational challenges are often closely linked to what’s currently going on in the relevant industry, combined with some that are specific to the organisation’s ambitions and standing.

In some cases, it will make sense to group job roles. For example, there will be broad issues that apply to the whole C-suite, or challenges that will have an impact across the IT, legal and compliance teams.

Also, it’s always valuable to look at segmentations used in previous campaigns to get a feel for what worked well and what wasn’t as successful. Talking to those in customer-facing roles can provide useful insight into how organisations in the sector are currently structuring their functions, so you can be sure your campaign is reflecting the most up-to-date segmentations.

Getting B2B segmentation right pays off

A robust and accurate segmentation framework sets your campaign up to unlock a wide range of benefits, including:  

• Enhanced personalisation through tailored messaging to achieve improved engagement.
• Increased conversion rates as a result of targeted approaches and directly relevant messaging and offers.
• Better campaign returns via a focus on higher-value segments, enabling budget optimisation.
• Strengthened customer relationships thanks to relevant interactions offering clear benefits.
• Competitive advantage achieved by building a reputation for a deep understanding of the target audience, together with approaches unique to that audience, giving an edge in the market.

At asabell, we frequently use segmentation tailored to each client’s market as the foundation of campaign planning. We’ve developed significant expertise in using this approach to deliver swift and accurate targeted messaging and add extra value through our experience of transferring segmentation learning from one sector to another.

Get in touch if you’d like to find out more.

Choosing a new content marketing agency is a big decision. Will they deliver what you need? Will they ‘get’ your organisation, industry and how you like to work? Will they be a good fit for you?

They may have been recommended to you, or their initial pitch may have been impressive but, when it comes down to it, will they walk the walk as well as they talk the talk?

After you’ve seen examples of their work, it’s sensible to scope out how they’ll work with you. Here are the top four questions to ask:

1. What steps will you take to get to know our business?

An effective agency should be proactive about asking questions around the topics below and suggest an onboarding meeting to learn what makes your organisation tick.

Topics to cover should include:

• your organisation’s objectives and wider business goals
• current industry challenges and trends
• key competitors to check out
• a big-picture summary of your target audiences
• your ways of working and how you’d like them to fit in with these
• your expectations of the agency and your priorities.

It’ll be important to share your past marketing collateral, brand guidelines and any strategy documentation before this meeting so your agency can review and ask any questions.

2. What experience can you bring to our partnership?

The experience an agency brings to the table is a significant asset – if it’s used to your benefit.

Ask them how they’ll use this in your work together.

Specifics to look for include:  

• insight based on previous experience in your sector and/or with your target audiences
• an approach that views your business with a fresh pair of eyes
• an understanding of the working practices of global organisations’ marketing departments and the likely pressures you’ll be under
• practical suggestions about how they can become a genuinely helpful virtual team member.

3. How will you communicate with us?  

Every organisation recognises clear communication as a vital part of any business relationship but what you need to pin down here is how this will work in practice. How will the agency go about building a collaborative partnership, particularly via a remote working setup?

An agency genuinely committed to collaboration should suggest:

• regular check-in calls for project updates and to report progress on hitting project milestones
• delivering regular budget updates
• a named project manager who will be the main point of contact and regularly available during working hours for quick questions or more extended consultations
• a willingness to act as a sounding board to help campaign development, sharing experience gained from cross-industry working.

4. How will you tailor your services to our requirements?

Your business is unique, and it requires content marketing that caters for your specific requirements. A marketing agency worth choosing will recognise the value of tailored content and be ready to deliver it.

Find out their approach to:

• customising their standard approaches to different content types to your organisation’s style and preferences
• considering your target audiences’ preferences, and crafting content to these
• pulling together content mixes in collaboration with you to better meet your objectives
• adapting in-life campaigns to emerging trends or industry issues to increase relevance and impact.

How we fit the bill

We pride ourselves on the outstanding quality of our work, our responsiveness, our ability to work to tight timescales, our transparency over progress and costings and our down-to-earth way of working.

But, above all, our clients talk about our friendliness, team spirit, can-do attitude and how well we collaborate as a virtual part of their marketing departments.

We’re always happy to chat about how we could support you and make your working life easier, so get in touch to find out more.

A great result

We met the video’s tight deadline and through clear communication got it right first time. BT were delighted with the result, able to successfully showcase their contact centre solution at their global event and we received great feedback.

Strategic partnerships are a great way for businesses to make the most of each other’s expertise and expand their offerings by creating a joint proposition that serves both of their customers’ needs. Armed with an exciting new offer and joint marketing campaign, both partners can broaden the other’s reach – tapping into new audiences and boosting awareness.

But working jointly across disparate teams can have its pitfalls, with projects at risk of being held up by complex sign-offs and overlapping processes. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. So, if you’re considering partner marketing, we’ve laid out the benefits and challenges it presents along with our top tips for making it a smooth process.

The benefits of partner marketing

By playing to both parties’ strengths, partner marketing can be a win-win for everyone involved. Working together effectively gives both parties access to a broader range of marketing expertise and skill sets, so you can create a stand-out marketing campaign that delivers results.

When two well regarded companies join forces they can also build on their credibility, while at the same time increasing brand awareness, attracting new customers and opening new markets. Shared marketing makes financial sense too, with the potential for larger budgets and better economies of scale.

The challenges of partner marketing

Before you embark on a partner marketing campaign, it’s important to be aware of the common pitfalls so you can avoid them. Working across teams with multiple stakeholders can lead to inefficiencies creeping in if people are unclear who is leading the project and what your end goal is. This can make projects take longer than necessary and exceed their allocated budgets.

It can also be tricky to strike the right balance in terms of whether both brands get equal promotion, or if one is more prominent. To tackle this, budgeting decisions, brand consistency and messaging all need to be carefully managed to ensure your campaign makes the right impact.

What you need for effective partner marketing

A sensible starting point for any partner marketing project is identifying a lead to guide you towards an outcome that you’re both happy with. Everyone needs to be clear on who this is and understand their role. The project lead is key to ensuring that clear goals are agreed from the outset and that a strategic promotional plan with well-defined timescales is in place.

The project lead is also responsible for ensuring effective, proactive communication between the two companies and is pivotal to fostering a positive working relationship. They can manage the sign-off process and coordinate cooperation between the parties involved. By ensuring key elements of the creative process, like joint branding and asset creation, are addressed they can make sure both businesses are aligned so you get the right outcome, first time round.

Using an agency to manage your partner marketing

Involving a third-party agency can make a world of difference to managing your partner marketing. At asabell, our partner marketing strategies are tried and tested, so we can anticipate any potential hold ups and run a smooth and successful campaign. We’ve worked with global organisations for 20 years and are skilled at managing multiple marketing departments and coordinating their efforts.

To find out more about how we can support your partner marketing, please contact us.

An easy experience with great results

BT Ireland’s two events based at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition were a huge success, achieving the target number of attendees and gaining great feedback from customers. Although there were many parts to this project, our close collaboration with the BT Ireland team and regular progress updates ensured a smooth and effective experience for the team – and we received great feedback from all concerned: