Three major new studies have been published about content marketing over the last few weeks. Among the most interesting findings are the fact that today’s marketers fully understand that content is a critical component to their marketing efforts and that white papers remain the most influential types of content—but only if they’re well written and compelling.
Here are some interesting highlights:
Content Really is King
“B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends” by MarketingProfs and Junta42 has found that content is now recognized a critical aspect of marketing. Nine out of ten B2B marketers are using content to grow their business. And the computing/software industry has the highest rate of adoption of content marketing strategies (94%).
Content must be High-Quality, Compelling
A survey from Vocus and Brian Solis concurred with the notion that content marketing is now a critical marketing tactic. But the content must be compelling. Fully one-half of surveyed marketing execs say creating, posting, and sharing compelling content is the single most important action people or brands can take to increase their influence online (50%). Quality of content is an important contributor to making a person or brand influential (55%) and the top reason people follow others on social sites is that content is relevant (62%).
The Most Influential Types of Content
What types of content are most effective? White papers are the most influential type of collateral. Eccolo Media’s third annual B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report found that white papers remain moderately to extremely influential in helping customers make a purchase decision for 83% of respondents. However, the influence of white papers depends on the size of the customer. Both decision makers and influencers from enterprise and mid-market companies are more likely to pay attention to a white paper than their small business counterparts.
The B2B Content Marketing 2010 benchmark also found white papers to be highly influential—although somewhat less so than the Eccolo study. More than half of the respondents to this study preferred white papers.
According to the Eccolo study, case studies are also valuable content with 67% of respondents using case studies to make technology purchases. 78% of respondents also use brochures and datasheets. However, these rank behind white papers and case studies in terms of influence.
What Disappoints
Eccolo asked what disappoints people when reading white papers. The most disappointing quality in white papers was poor writing quality. Other disappointments include papers that are not technical enough, and those with no real-life cases.
What Confuses
These studies also show that marketers remain confused about how to best use social media. The B2B Marking 2010 Benchmark found that while 79% of respondents are adopting social media (excluding blogs) only 31% feel it’s an effective tactic.
Surprising Results
It’s a well known fact that different people absorb information better using different methods. Some people are more visual, others prefer sound. Marketers are beginning to use this knowledge to provide the same information using different media in the same marketing piece. The Eccolo study found that an emerging trend in marketing materials was embedding audio and video files into digital versions of written documents such as white papers and case studies. Moreover, when these media are included, 93 percent of respondents clicked through to these embedded files.
How do these findings match your experiences?
Thanks for the helpful and clear synthesis. I agree that content marketing is a critical component for any marketing strategy in B2B.
Posted by: Marino Fadda | October 16, 2010 at 09:36 AM