There are so many B2B marketing ideas floating around the internet. Some are passing trends and others are evergreen methodologies. One particularly well known strategy, which comes from Backlinko’s Brian Dean, is called the Skyscraper Technique. You may have heard of the Skyscraper Technique before; SEO professionals and inbound marketers often praise its effectiveness. Dean claims his search engine traffic increased 110% after only two weeks after implementing this strategy. Like many B2B marketing ideas, it’s no silver bullet, but is it worth considering for your company?

The Skyscraper Technique is no marketing secret. You might already be doing a similar strategy already. If you have never heard of the strategy, however, here are the basic steps:

Step 1: Lay a Strong Foundation

To start off, you’re going to need to find content worth reading. Begin by finding an article in your industry that has already shown to be buzzworthy. You’re looking for content that has generated social media attention, comments, shares and generally high rankings in Google.

The article you select should cover a popular topic in your industry, but it should also 1) allow you to optimize for a search term your website can reasonably rank for and 2) be a topic you can reasonably approve upon.

Step 2: Build it Tall

Once you’ve found a solid, buzzworthy article, you’ll need to write a better version of it. The Skyscraper Technique is like building a skyscraper: you’ll want to build a taller one than your neighbors.

Make it better. Make it longer. Make it more encompassing. Make it prettier. Make it more current. Make it all-around more impressive than the other articles already available on the web.

Step 3: Have a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Unfortunately, good content is not enough. Now, the right people need to see it. To begin, you’ll need to identify the industry bloggers, media outlets, customers and aggregate outlets that may be interested in your new article. You’ll also want to make sure they’ve linked to similar content already. The key is finding a primed audience.

Once your media list has been identified, now comes the fun part: content marketing. The success of the Skyscraper Technique comes from pitching to your targeted audience that your new content is worth sharing. When you email these individuals, be sure to ask them to link to your content if they enjoy it.

Dean claims to have an 11% success rate from his email outreach. While that may be a small return, he suggests they were all quality links.

Is it a solid strategy?

Taking existing content, making it better and reaching out to the right people – a simple strategy that any company, big or small, can utilize. Right?

The effectiveness of most B2B marketing ideas is contested widely on the web, and this one is no exception. Some marketers will swear by this technique. Several case studies have even shown better results than Dean’s. However, the technique is not without its critics. It’s up to you to decide if the pros outweigh the cons.

Pros

You’ve made better content. Even if nothing else worked, you still have something better than your competitors — and that helps position you as a thought leader in your industry. Besides that, fresh content will always be beneficial for your SEO.

You’ve also made new contacts in your industry. Compiling your media list definitely ate up some time but, whether they respond positively or not, you still have the excuse of your content to make contact with other industry influencers. At the end of the day, your network is still your networth. Am I right?

Cons

The Skyscraper Technique might not work so great for fledgling sites. According to Dale Cudmore from Ahrefs and our friends from howtostartablogonline.net, this strategy worked well for Dean because he had a considerable advantage prior to beginning the technique. His site, Backlinko, has a domain authority of 76. That’s more than most of us can say.

Competing against high domain authority sites can be difficult. If you’re expecting to be on the coveted first page of search results, you will likely be disappointed. High difficulty keywords will still play a major role in your site’s ability to rank. If your site is smaller, consider practicing this strategy on a search term with low difficulty.

Of course, the Skyscraper Technique is not the only SEO strategy you can be using. Other B2B marketing ideas also have the potential to increase search visibility and domain authority. If SEO and content marketing is something your company has been struggling with, give us a call. Brandcave can help improve your rankings and many other aspects of your inbound marketing strategy.