Due to the complexity of the B2B marketing sales cycle, and the potential for an average of 18 touches required before a customer conversion takes place, it’s important for marketers to keep up on the latest content consumption and production trends.
Let’s start with our own data. According to Chief Marketer’s 2020 B2B Marketing Outlook, the content that’s most effective for moving prospects through the sales funnel is articles and blog posts (55 percent), reviews and customer testimonials (43 percent) and whitepapers (38 percent).
But a new report from Centerline Digital looks at how managers and VPs consume marketing content in comparison to c-level executives. For instance, c-level execs take 21 percent more time to read content than managers do, and VPs consume content the fastest—usually within 24 hours. The implication: targeting managers and VPs could result in faster results. The report also noted that the early-funnel content type that’s the highest-rated is infographics and 59 percent of senior executives prefer to watch video over text.
An infographic from Grazitti Interactive highlights additional consumption and production trends, from technologies used to aid content marketing, outsourcing strategies and the stages of the funnel for which B2B marketers tend to create the most content. Here are the highlights:
*The top three technologies used to assist content marketing are analytic tools, email marketing software and social media publishing.
*The least important technologies used were content performance and recommendation analytics, digital asset management systems and integrated content marketing platforms.
*Half of B2B marketers surveyed outsource at least one content marketing activity, with content creation being the category at the very top of the list.
*While 92 percent of B2B marketers fast check their content to ensure accuracy, 48 percent craft content based on the stages of the customer journey.
*Half the content produced by B2B marketers is created for early stages of the customer journey. Just 14 percent is produced as late-stage content and 11 percent for post-sale.
*80 percent of B2B marketers use metrics to measure content performance, with 65 percent establishing KPIs. The top metrics used are email engagements, website traffic, website engagement, social media analytics and conversions.
*The top three goals achieved by B2B marketers through content marketing are creating brand awareness, educating audiences and building credibility and trust.
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