Much of digital marketing is about trying to break through the noise and stand out in the crowd. Content marketing – creating content that consumers want to engage with – is a significant focus in B2C industries, but it doesn’t stop there. Offering valuable content is just as important for B2B marketers, and finding effective ways to grab the attention of potential and current clients can have a big impact on your bottom line.

But just because we know it’s important doesn’t mean we do it effectively. The struggle to connect – really connect – with our audiences is a pain point for many organizations, and customizing the ways we communicate to best fit our brands and the people we’re trying to reach isn’t an easy task.

Liveclicker’s LiveSocial experience – now featuring the ability to add real-time LinkedIn posts, as well as Twitter, Facebook and Instragram, right into your emails – makes sharing the excellent content you’re producing simple, and enables you to amplify your social messages while engaging your audience and connecting with their networks. Now, drawing attention to your brand, spreading your message, and generating quality leads can be as easy as one, two three. Let’s review.

Step One: Create Valuable Content

By now, most companies have realized that content marketing is one of the most effective ways of grabbing prospective clients’ attention. Where marketers fall short, however, is creating content that’s actually valuable to consumers. If we’re all “content marketing,” it takes something special to stand out from the crowd. Many pieces of content are just thinly veiled product marketing campaigns. Taking the selling points of your product and formatting them like a blog isn’t engaging or helpful to the consumer, and it won’t be an effective tool for lead generation.

Consider this: The average customer makes it more than halfway through the buying process – about 70% of the way – without ever contacting a sales representative. Imagine that. Potential customers are doing their due diligence before ever contacting a member of your team. What kinds of information are they going to find? Will it be valuable, engaging, and relevant? Will it have actionable steps they can take to grow their business or skills? Will it position your brand as the expert they need to consult, or your product as the solution to one of their pain points? Showing your company’s value through blogging, social media, or other forms of storytelling is incredibly effective – if there’s also something in it for the consumer.

Step Two: Spread your Message

Producing stellar content is just the first step. Once you create it, how are people going to find it? Research by Google and Millward Brown Digital found that 71% of B2B researchers start their search with generic terms. Therefore, focusing on keywords, SEO, and being the answer to people’s questions is key, along with making your content accessible in more places. Enter social media.

LinkedIn is, without a doubt, the most valuable social network for professionals. According to research from HubSpot, LinkedIn is 277% more effective at lead generation than Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn users are often high-level decision-makers, with 91% of executives ranking LinkedIn as their go-to for professionally relevant content. Nearly half of all B2B consumers research vendors by looking at their LinkedIn profile. There’s a huge opportunity for companies to leverage the power of LinkedIn to spread their message and generate quality leads.

Step Three: Keep Credibility at the Forefront

For consumers, it’s not just about finding the content. It’s also about trusting the source. That’s where the true power of social media comes in. A study by LinkedIn revealed that 44% of B2B consumers found potential vendors by looking at shared connections on LinkedIn. People are more likely to engage with content shared by someone they trust than with a brand they aren’t familiar with, and more likely to trust the opinions or reviews of a friend than they are the curated message of a brand. Crafting your message and putting it in a place where your biggest fans can easily access and share it allows you to control what’s being said about your brand while taking advantage of the trust those people have gained within their networks.

Step Four: Bring it all Together with RealTime Email

At Liveclicker, this is on the forefront of our minds, and that’s why we’re excited that RealTime Email empowers you to embed a live feed from your LinkedIn profile right in your email marketing messages, making it easier than ever for your recipients to access and share the quality content you’re producing. For prospect newsletters, for example, you’re giving potential clients direct access to your best content, making it easier for you to control the message of your brand and the information they may find about your solutions.

By giving your clients easy access to your up-to-date LinkedIn feed and its social sharing options you’re able to not only strengthen engagement with them, but also leverage their networks. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, and that’s the purpose of content marketing.

If you’d like to learn more about Liveclicker’s LiveSocial experience in email, please let us know!