Content strategy for B2B brands has two primary functions: to build trust and then develop that trust into working business relationships that benefit everyone involved. So how do you think about content strategy in order to set yourself up for building trust, and then converting? Let's talk about that.



Before we get going, I want to point out that, during changing times, we need to rest upon a firm foundation of values, no matter what's going on in the world. For this reason, we're focusing on the fundamentals: building trust through coherent branding and then developing that trust through a series of communications, via an email-based content strategy.
Why Email?
Right off the bat, email should be at the core of most content strategies. Here's why:

You own your list. Unlike your Facebook page or Youtube account, you own your list, and it doesn't belong to anyone else.
Email delivers the best analytics. You can know exactly who opened and clicked through, which is not something web analytics offers.
It's a media channel. It's like creating your own magazine you get to advertise in, but you control all editorial content and put the "ads" where you want.

Email allows you to measure and understand what your customer is doing at the individual level. In other words, where your website analytics only shows anonymized summary data, email shows you an email address and a name, including how they interacted with your content every month. If email is at the core of your inbound marketing mix, measuring all your returning customers and their interactions (perhaps together with your CRM), you now have the best data on those most valuable relationships (in other words, people who want to hear from you and who have said they want to hear from you).
Gaining Trust
Trust gives you repeat customers and higher-value customers. In other words, better relationships. People who aren't trustworthy have to lower their prices. But if your customer likes and trusts you more than anyone else, you win and they win.

Here are a few possible problems you might be solving by gaining trust.
Your Competition is Untrustworthy
You could find that building trust is especially important if:

You are surrounded by competitors who are transactional – who see people as dollar signs and don't really care about having a relationship or building trust with your audience.
And there is value in creating such a relationship – return customers are less costly to acquire and more fun to work with.

If people are starved for trust, you could be the breath of fresh air they want.
You're Post-Merger
You can use email powerfully to build trust and engage your customers and other stakeholders after a merger or acquisition. Email gives you a chance to talk about the merger, even go into detail, and to address objections without rigid time constraints.

In other words, you can talk to the people who said they want to hear from you and send them information to keep them in the loop. Because in a merger or acquisition, the last thing you want is for people to misunderstand. But if you're sharing information about everything you're doing, telling them what to think about it and why you're doing it, then your intentions become clear and believable.
You're Entering a New Market
A content marketing campaign is especially valuable when you're new to the market and people don't know you yet. They don't know what to think about you, they don't know your approach to business, and they don't know your character. A gradually growing email newsletter is a great way to help them to know how you think.
You're Innovating
Leaders in innovation are by nature teachers. They share their vision and paint a picture of the future. Even if you're just solving a problem in an innovative way, people need to understand how it works. If it's a service, they may need to understand a new workflow.

Think of a new app that lets you buy stocks with no transac...

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