B2B content marketing is the demand generation pillar in the SEMrush digital marketing strategy. SEMrush sells a SaaS platform that helps with SEO, PPC, content marketing, social media and competitive research. They have more than over 5M clients. I've been using SEMrush to support my B2B content marketing for years. I recently ran into Anna Lebedeva, their Head of Growth Marketing in Los Angeles. We had a chance to sit down and talk about B2B content marketing strategy for a special episode of the B2B Lead Gen Podcast. In this post, I'll summarize what I learned from my conversation. But first, some B2B content marketing basics to frame our conversation for newbies. I Suck at Algebra Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash I used to sit at my desk with tears in my eyes, trying to get ready for Algebra 2 tests in high school. I hated algebra because I struggled to understand it. My brother Jamie used to tutor me. He's the math guy. I'm the English guy. Although he'll tell you he's both. ;-) Onthe other hand, I did understand geometry. For some reason, geometry was easy for me, cause I understand spatial relationships. They make sense to me because they're practical. Numercial equation are not. I tell you this because even if you're not a numbers person, you can learn the Basics of SEO. And it's a huge part of content marketing. Everyone does social because it's fun but too many digital marketers overlook SEO and it's where you'll get your best traffic. If you still haven't learned the basics, my class is free (and fun I'm told) so you have no excuse. B2B Content Marketing 101 If you're new to B2B content marketing, search engine optimization and B2B content marketing go hand in hand. It's not enough to create engaging content. Your typical customer profile has to be able to find it easily through Google search. When you're thinking about what to create content about, the idea is to create information that answer questions people are searching for answers to. You want to create content that will help answer their questions and solve their problems when they search online. If you think about it, that's why we search. We're looking for something we don't know. We're looking for answers to questions. We're looking to solve problems. The First Book on Search and Social for B2B Marketing In the B2B world, those problems are also called pain points. B2B content marketers don't guess what those pain points are. They use digital marketing tools like SEMrush to research the questions their potential customers are searching and create answers designed to get found. In my book Social Marketing to the Business Customer with Paul Gillin -- the very first book on the use of search and social for B2B marketing -- we profiled a company killing it in B2B content marketing which is a great case study. B2B Customer Journey Mapping 101 Indium sells solder paste. You know, the stuff they use to attach electrical components together on circuit boards. Induim's B2B content marketing strategy. SEO isn't just the backbone of their B2B content marketing strategy. It's the backbone of their entire marketing strategy.