8 Most Common B2B Content Creation Challenges and How to Solve Them

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) released its ‘B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2024’ report. There’s certainly a lot to unpack!

Drawing from the extensive research presented by CMI, we’ve pinpointed eight key obstacles that many marketers encounter in their content strategies. These challenges serve as roadblocks to achieving optimal results and require proactive solutions to overcome. 

Our mission is to empower fellow marketers with actionable strategies tailored to tackle each of these hurdles head-on. By leveraging our expertise and experience, we’re here to revolutionise your approach to content creation and drive meaningful results for your business.

First, here’s the top eight challenges content marketers face in 2024:

1. Creating the right content for our audience
2. Creating content consistently
3. Differentiating our content
4. Optimising for SEO
5. Creating quality content
6. Creating enough content to keep up with internal demand
7. Creating content that requires technical skills
8. Creating enough content to keep up with external demand

And, here’s practical solutions to these challenges, many of which can be implemented instantly:

Challenge #1 Creating the right content for our audience

Content marketers often grapple with the challenge of creating content that resonates with their target audience. While they may have a general idea of who their audience is, the accuracy of this understanding can vary. To effectively address this issue, marketers must take proactive steps to ensure they are crafting content that truly speaks to their audience’s needs and interests.

The first crucial step in solving this problem is to define buyer personas meticulously. These personas represent fictional representations of your ideal customers, encompassing demographic information, interests, goals, and behaviours. By developing detailed buyer personas, marketers gain valuable insights into the specific needs and preferences of their audience segments.

Furthermore, understanding the pain points of your target audience is essential. Conduct thorough research to identify the challenges, obstacles, and frustrations that your audience faces in their daily lives or professional endeavours. This insight enables marketers to tailor their content to address these pain points directly, offering valuable solutions, insights, or resources.

Mapping the buyer journey is another pivotal aspect of solving this problem. By mapping out the stages that individuals go through as they progress from being unaware of a problem to actively seeking solutions, marketers can align their content with each stage of the journey. This ensures that the right content is delivered to the right audience at the right time, effectively guiding them towards conversion.

Challenge #2 Creating content consistently

Consistency in content creation is crucial for effective marketing strategies, yet it presents a formidable challenge for many content marketers.

One pivotal factor is the allocation of resources, whether through in-house talent, collaboration with agencies, or leveraging the expertise of freelancers. Establishing reliable internal resources and fostering strong partnerships ensure a steady flow of content production, essential for maintaining consistency over time.

Equally important is the implementation of robust editorial planning. A carefully crafted editorial calendar serves as the guiding compass, keeping content creators on track and holding every team member accountable for their contributions. This structured approach not only helps streamline workflow but also mitigates the risk of last-minute scrambles and missed deadlines.

Determining the optimal volume of content necessitates a nuanced understanding of the competitive landscape. Analysing competitors’ strategies provides valuable insights into industry benchmarks and audience expectations, enabling you to calibrate your content output accordingly. Yet, achieving consistency goes beyond mere quantity; it entails a profound understanding of content performance and audience engagement. By closely monitoring key metrics and actively soliciting feedback, you can glean invaluable insights into the efficacy of your content efforts, facilitating iterative improvements and strategic adaptations.

Challenge #3 Differentiating our content

Another common challenge is differentiating content, an issue that is currently exacerbated by the rise of AI content. While AI tools offer efficiency and scalability, they often lack the human touch and experiential depth that resonates with audiences on a profound level. Google’s endorsement of first-person writing underscores the importance of infusing content with authenticity and personal narrative to stand out amidst the sea of automated content. One correlation study even found that Google’s algorithm favours content that uses first-person pronouns and first-hand experience, over those that do not!

To effectively differentiate content, marketers must harness the power of storytelling, anecdotes, quotes, and real-life experiences. By weaving these elements into their narrative fabric, you can forge genuine connections with your audience, eliciting emotions and fostering engagement in ways that algorithms simply cannot replicate. Incorporating compelling statistics and data-driven insights adds credibility and depth to content, offering valuable perspectives that captivate and inform readers.

Challenge #4 Optimising for SEO

Optimising for SEO is not merely an option but a critical imperative in today’s digital landscape. As evidenced by recent reports, search engines reign supreme as the primary source for consumer discovery, underlining the pivotal role of SEO in driving online visibility and engagement. In fact, search engines are the top source of brand discovery, particularly for 35-54 year olds. With competition intensifying across industries, neglecting SEO is akin to burying your content and rendering it invisible to potential audiences.

As such, investing in expertise is non-negotiable. Whether through comprehensive training programmes for your internal teams or leveraging external resources, ensuring mastery of SEO best practices is essential for maximising the impact of your online presence. And the dynamic nature of search algorithms necessitates continuous adaptation and learning, making ongoing education and upskilling imperative for staying ahead of the curve.

Challenge #5 Creating quality content

Creating quality content remains a pervasive challenge for marketers, especially in a landscape increasingly saturated with AI-generated material. While AI tools offer remarkable efficiency and scalability, they often lack the nuanced understanding, creativity, and emotional intelligence inherent in human-driven content creation. This human touch is vital for crafting content that resonates authentically with audiences, elicits emotional responses, and fosters genuine connections. Not to mention, the sheer volume of content flooding digital channels makes it harder for brands to cut through the noise and capture audience attention!

There are a few ways to get around this. Firstly, investing in talent and expertise is crucial. Hiring skilled writers, SEO copywriters, or content creators who possess a deep understanding of your brand, industry, and target audience can elevate the quality of your content and imbue it with authenticity and relevance.

Investing in SEO is of paramount importance in 2024, especially with Google’s March 2024 core update that is set to improve search result quality and reduce approximately 40% of unhelpful content. Much like with the Helpful Content Update in 2022, website’s need to make human-first content their top priority.

Furthermore, maintaining a rigorous editorial process is essential for quality control. Thoroughly researching topics, fact-checking information, and adhering to editorial guidelines ensure accuracy and credibility in your content – specially when using AI tools for support. Collaborating closely with subject matter experts, obtaining feedback from peers, and conducting regular quality assurance checks help identify and rectify any potential issues before content is published.

How do you measure content quality? While metrics such as SEO rankings, organic traffic, engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates provide valuable insights into content performance, qualitative assessments are equally important. This includes peer and audience feedback, sentiment analysis, and user-generated content.

Learn more about measuring the ROI of content.

Challenge #6 Creating enough content to keep up with internal demand

Keeping up with internal demand for content can be a daunting task, but with effective strategies in place, you can ensure a steady flow of high-quality material.

First and foremost, you must work closely with stakeholders to identify and prioritise content needs based on organisational goals, audience preferences, and industry trends. Develop a content calendar or roadmap that outlines key content initiatives, deadlines, and responsible team members to keep everyone aligned and focused. To help with this, identify and eliminate bottlenecks, automate repetitive tasks wherever possible, and leverage project management tools to streamline collaboration and communication among team members.

Challenge #7 Creating content that requires technical skills

Creating content that requires technical skills is in increasing demand as consumers expect more than just written content. Did you know that 87% of B2B marketers are already using video as a marketing tool? Whether you’re producing videos, animations, podcasts, or interactive presentations, technical skills are a must-have for multimedia content. So, how do you overcome the challenge of creating content that requires technical skills?

Invest time in mastering the software and tools required for multimedia content creation, whether it’s video or photo editing, or animation. At Semetrical, we use Adobe’s Creative Suite, however, there are free alternatives out there, like Canva. Familiarise yourself with their features, shortcuts, and capabilities to streamline your workflow and unleash your creativity. There’s truly nothing better than learning through doing!

Alternatively, again, if there’s a skills gap within your team, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing. In fact, outsourcing creative talent is an amazing way to tap into on-demand technical skills as and when you need them.

Visual storytelling is key to engaging your audience and conveying your message effectively, so it’s certainly not something to ignore. This is especially true for B2B audiences, who are often inundated with technical information and data. Instead, they appreciate visual content that simplifies complexities and enhances understanding. By employing visual storytelling techniques such as infographics, diagrams, and videos, B2B marketers can distil intricate ideas into digestible formats, making content more engaging and memorable.

Challenge #8 Creating enough content to keep up with external demand

Overcoming the challenge of creating enough content to keep up with external demand requires a strategic approach and effective resource management.

Before we delve into it, we must first define what ‘enough’ content actually means. And the truth is, there’s isn’t a clear-cut answer to this. As a rough guide, you need to ensure that you are creating the content that your audience needs at each stage of the buyer’s journey, content that answers all their pain points and questions, and a consistent flow of content to satisfy your audience’s content consumption preferences and search engines. One way you can find this out is by spying on your top-performing competitors. However, remember, more content isn’t always a good thing and you should always prioritise quality over quantity!

So, once you know how much external demand there is, how do you keep up with it?

To begin, identify high-priority topics that align with your audience’s interests, pain points, and industry trends. Focus on creating content that delivers value and addresses specific needs, rather than trying to cover every possible topic. Likewise, try and repurpose as much existing content as possible in order to maximise content value and lifecycle, without putting a strain on your resources. For example, transform blog posts into webinars, eBooks, or social media snippets to extend reach and engagement. You’ll notice this is something we do very often at Semetrical.

For example, we wrote this fantastic, comprehensive guide to SaaS marketing on our blog that covers everything you could possibly need to know. We then atomised this large content asset into niche blogs, such as SEO for SaaS and content marketing for SaaS. We also created digestible social media copy and visuals, and posted these to our LinkedIn. See below:

Another helpful trick to stay on track and keep consistent with your content creation is to use a content management system and automation tools. These technologies enable you to streamline repetitive tasks such as content scheduling, distribution, and tracking, which can be a real time-saver. As discussed above, a detailed and easy-to-use content calendar should also help with this.

You may find that down the line, as your company grows, you need to consider supplementing your teams with external resources. Freelancers and agencies are invaluable if your internal team lacks the bandwidth, expertise, or specialised skills required to meet content demands. Whether that’s for seasonal peaks or time-sensitive projects, content requirements fluctuate and you should make sure you’ve got a trusted partner by your side to call on when you need it. Don’t leave your audiences’ content needs underserved!

Explore the pros and cons of hiring a content freelancer or an agency.

Next steps

While content marketing in the B2B world comes with many challenges, there is always a solution! With a bit of forward planning, research, and resource management, you can reach your content goals and achieve your business objectives.

Still haven’t found the answers you’re looking for? Have a chat with our experts to see how we can help realise your digital ambitions!