How modular content creates better B2B marketing ROI

Long-form content is a secret weapon in your B2B content marketing arsenal. Content, like white papers and eBooks, not only builds trust, authority, and brand voice, it can also push your digital marketing into hyperdrive. Don’t stop once you have this ‘hero’ content, however. 

Atomic or modular content amplifies B2B marketing ROI. It makes sure that when you’ve invested in a significant piece of thought leadership or educational content, you can maximise its value. The approach of ‘create once, publish everywhere’ can help squeeze every last bit of juice from your content marketing efforts, and, ultimately, save you time and money   

What is atomic or modular content? 

Atomic content is a phrase coined to describe modular marketing material–where long-form pieces of content provide the base for small content pieces, repurposed to fit specific platforms and audiences.   Existing case studies, white papers, podcasts, and guides are sliced and diced into multiple nuggets for channels like social media, newsletters, blogs, content syndication and more.  

The University of Michigan’s IT web strategy resources describe atomic content as ‘chunks’ that provide users (or the audiences you’re selling to) with ‘just what they need at the moment’. 

Web designer Brad Frost, author of Atomic Design (2016), compares monolithic design to modular content’s benefits: Uniformity, reliable quality, and production speed: 
 
‘Modularity predates the web by a long shot. The Industrial Revolution brought about interchangeable parts and Henry Ford’s assembly line forever transformed the automobile manufacturing process. […] Ford broke the automobile down into its component parts and modularized the assembly process. The results spoke for themselves: more uniform, more reliable, safer cars rolled out of the factory, and in record time to boot.’ 

Atomic content applies this agile system design approach to marketing. Not only can you build exceptional content pieces from smaller, modular blocks, you can also take apart the lead-generating Ford of your white paper and reassemble the Lamborghini of brand-building social content plans.  

Modular content examples 

Many examples of modular content follow the ‘Create Once, Publish Everywhere’ or COPE strategy popularised by National Public Radio (NPR).  

The ‘COPE’ strategy – adapting one piece of media for multiple platforms – maximises ROI from longer content pieces since you don’t create from scratch every time you publish. 
 
Here’s an example.   

A cloud server company writes a long-form piece that succinctly explains the top cloud server security risks in 2023, such as unsecured AWS keys. 

You could use these security risks individually to create blog posts, social media posts, or infographics. 

For example, you might publish a blog post explaining the risks of unsecured AWS keys and other security vulnerabilities. Repurposing content across channels, you could create a LinkedIn Carousel that demonstrates your company’s cybersecurity expertise and raises brand awareness about your solutions. 

A company in the oil and gas industry may have vast exploration insights in internal documentation. Subject specialist content creators could turn this data into insightful modular content pieces on the tech challenges in exploration. Or else posts on safety and environmental impact issues and ethical site investigation. 
 

What are the advantages of modular content in B2B marketing? 

 
Atomic content is modular and adaptable, like LEGO blocks. It helps you reshape and pivot insights to suit different target audiences and platforms. 

Use modular, atomic content design to: 

1. Drive lead generation

Your lead shouldn’t have to trawl lengthy resources to find the precise information they need now. 
 
Your buyer may seek a critical answer, perhaps whether a fintech platform integrates smoothly with existing company software. 

Atomic content, such as an infographic on software integration, turns one piece of the big picture into an accessible unit that your lead can consume quicker for a faster path to further desirable actions. One piece of great long-form content, atomised into smaller units with multiple calls to action for a range of B2B buyers and influencers, can significantly broaden your funnel. 

2. Simplify and streamline information architecture

Modular content simplifies building an organised library of information pieces you can structure and add to, like a knowledge base.    

Flesh out a blog category with posts on related topic clusters, then craft a pillar page that gives a high-level overview of a subject while linking to relevant subtopic pages. 

Pillar pages have robust search ranking power due to comprehensive treatment of a crucial topic (lending authority), good internal linking structure, and helpful atomic design that lets readers immerse themselves further when they want to. 

3. Make content repurposing easier

In the same way that modular components made it easier for Ford to reproduce and reuse efficient designs, modular content creation accelerates publishing.  

Instead of writing a carousel or long-form sales email from scratch, you can quickly adapt modular pieces that get relevant information into the right hands. Repurposing content for social media makes it easier to be consistent on platforms that reward regular publishing. 

Building branded templates and other collateral saves time in content production. 

4. Future-proof your B2B marketing collateral

The modular approach to B2B marketing materials makes your content ‘evergreen’. It future proofs your content as you can easily add or swap sections as tech, compliance regulations, and other information advances. 

In a 2022 white paper on future-proofing B2B sales by senior Harvard Business School lecturer Frank V. Cespedes, Cespedes describes how the linear model of thinking about B2B sales funnels is outdated. 

The linear model sees your buyer progress from awareness to interest, desire, and action. Today’s buyers move between online and offline. They move between owned media, influencers’ channels, company websites, and review forums. 

Modular atomic content future-proofs your B2B messaging. Content pieces ready for repurposing are easy to adapt for the platform publishing format where your prospect is right now in their nonlinear journey. Having a strong messaging and positioning strategy also helps.   

5. Speed up the content approval process

How does atomic content streamline content approval? Modular blocks of guides and software or product information help you build a library of approved, on-brand messaging. You then have a resource to share with creators, so creating new content with strong brand relevance and tone and voice continuity is easy. 

Modular content containing pre-approved elements is faster to approve, as details have already been vetted and given sign-off. 

6. Curate and reassemble content pieces by audience and channel

Only some products and services appeal to niche, single-target demographics by design. Businesses find sales success in diversified user bases. 

Repurposing existing, atomic content for each audience segment you target is strategic messaging curation. Apple doesn’t sell to graphic designers on mobile, web developers on desktop, and schools seeking equipment upgrades offline the same way.   

Your library of pieces packed with generous value exchange and insight becomes a flexible resource. You can take parts out or replace them, according to who you’re speaking to in what context. 

7. Reduce effort and errors

One of the significant benefits of atomic content is deduplicating effort. You do not need to create messaging from scratch for each platform. 

You also reduce error margins as content parts have already undergone quality assessment.  

Deduplicating content production allows resource reallocation. Content teams may have more time for outreach, audience engagement, rewriting key landing pages, and other tasks. This makes atomic content an excellent tool for keeping production scalability friendly. 

In summary, creating content with atomic design principles in mind gives your messaging more mileage and brand uniformity, future-proofs your marketing collateral, and deduplicates effort for better content marketing ROI. 

Now read this: 

Think you don’t have the budget to outsource B2B content creation? Think again. 

Need scalable, modular campaign-in-a-box B2B solutions? Get in touch today. 

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