Five classic ways to make your B2B content budget go further

Challenging economic conditions and slow growth across the B2B technology sector have seen many marketers’ budgets fall significantly over the last year. Here are five ways you can achieve much more with a little less.

A B2B content marketer planning their marketing budget at a computer and putting coins into a jar with a chart laid over the top

It’s no secret that the past couple of years have been tough for enterprise technology companies. Between economic downturn, geopolitical instability, and unpredictable demand, most organisations have had to tighten their purse strings significantly.

This is putting a lot of pressure on B2B technology marketers.

In challenging circumstances like these, organisations look to their marketing function to drive demand and keep their pipeline strong. At the same time, they often pare back marketing teams and budgets, as they look to minimise every minimisable expense. According to Gartner’s 2024 CMO spend survey, average marketing budgets have fallen by 15 per cent this year alone.

We’ve supported the brilliant B2B marketers we call our clients through such moments before, and we surely will again. If you’re being asked to do more with less, and you need a little inspiration, here are five tried-and-tested methods.

#1) Make the most of the content you already have

Repurposing an asset can be much cheaper than creating one from scratch. So, dive into your library of existing content before you commission something utterly new.

Maybe you’ve an evergreen ebook that could be atomised into a fresh set of infographics. Or perhaps you’ve a white paper that previously didn’t perform too well, but suddenly has new relevance for your audience and just needs a new promotional push.

#2) Refresh your highest-performing pieces

Another quick and easy win is to refresh an asset that you’re really proud of. Take a content piece that you know your audience love, and look for opportunities to revitalise it with some up-to-the-minute context.

Think about how your thoughts and insights on the topic have evolved since the piece was originally published. If it makes any predictions about the future, ask yourself whether they’ve materialized – and if not, why not? Sometimes, all a classic content piece needs is some timely scene-setting – perhaps through a new introduction or executive summary – to become almost as powerful as the day it first launched.

#3) Narrow your focus to high-intent prospects

Typically, when economic conditions get tough, organisations are even more keen to see their marketing spend having an immediate impact on their bottom line.

One way to get more bang for your budget – at least in the eyes of your organisation – is therefore to focus on prospects with a very high likelihood of buying in the immediate future. (Though you’ll want to get back to building a diverse pipeline of prospects at a range of intent levels just as soon as you can.)

From a content creation perspective, that means asking some new questions. What problems are you solving for your newest customers? Which sub-personas are buying from you most frequently? What are customers asking you for right now?

By honing in on the needs of those most likely to buy, you’ll make sure the value your content delivers is both more immediate and harder to miss.

#4) Talk to your fellow marketers to avoid duplicating effort

Across very large enterprises, you’ll typically find multiple teams of marketers working on their own content pieces. Working autonomously helps those teams to avoid content creation bottlenecks, but it can also lead to duplicated effort.

When the sun is shining and budgets are ample, this isn’t a huge issue. If you end up with two content pieces that explore a similar topic, that’s probably not the end of the world – they might even be useful assets for different stages of a multi-touch nurture campaign.

But when your budgets are constrained, being on the same page as your colleagues in other parts of the business will help you all to make the most of your resources. Share your content plans early, and minimise the chance that you’ll duplicate each other’s work.

#5) Don’t risk the quality of your content

When you need every pound, dollar, or euro of your spend to deliver measurable returns for your business, cutting corners is extremely risky.

With all eyes on your output, it’s important to get things right first time — or at least, as close to first time as possible. The last thing you want is to have your content go through double-digit rounds of edits, only to end up with a piece that doesn’t land with your audience.

That’s why, when you’ve to spend less on your content, the smart play is usually to sacrifice quantity, not quality.

If you’d like to chat about how you could make your content budget go further, get in touch with us today.


Steve

Steve is one of Radix’s most experienced and expressive writers. Beloved by our clients for his ability to turn simple ideas into high-performing content and campaigns, he blends strategic thinking with deep copywriting expertise to consistently deliver copy that gets results.

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