To develop a cohesive messaging strategy that leads to conversions, brands should track factors such as who is consuming the content and which channels perform best. To begin with, brands can determine which types of content are engaged with most frequently in order to determine the degree of investment that should be made into those particular formats. That might mean, for instance, using different types of video content depending on where the buyer is along their journey.

Pandey also recommends determining which channels are most popular by examining where the most active users are coming from. Finally, brands should measure performance through looking at channel engagement and actions, steps leading to conversions and lead generation. For more insights and examples of crafting a full-funnel content approach, read more in AdExchanger.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Special Report: Creating a Consistent Brand Experience During COVID-19
• Chief Marketer’s 2020 COVID-19 Marketing Outlook Report
• How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Digital During the Pandemic

The post Creating a Unified Content Strategy: Insights for B2B Marketers appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Today’s customers expect businesses to offer tailored services and personalized content. Companies need to demonstrate an understanding of their customer’s needs, before they can expect a purchase.

This places an immense stress on the shoulders of senior marketers and their teams. In fact, 74% of senior marketers say that they can’t produce the sheer volume and variety of content fast enough₁, and that’s despite 97% of respondents indicating that “publishing personalized digital content more quickly is a priority.”₂

Marketers are facing a crisis of content that is not going to solve itself. There are plenty of possible solutions, but no silver bullet. Automation, for example, can be a powerful tool for dealing with the content crisis, but you need to know which technology is right for your operation and your potential customers.

The cold, hard fact is that most organizations simply don’t have the peoplepower, budget, or strategy to execute a successful content approach. This limits their ability to improve the customer experience and beat the competition.

It’s going to be tough to deliver on customers’ high expectations, but it becomes easier with a solid, stable foundation for growth. Ideally, this will take the form of a single, unified content creation platform. From this, everything else – from strategy and scheduling to resource management and analytics – will follow.

At Sitecore, we know that your content crisis is a top priority to solve. It’s time to take action, using our insight as a guide.

[Sources]
1 Avanade Sitecore Martech Research Report
2 Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) and Sitecore – Trends in Personalization Report 2019

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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.

The post Content Consumption and Production Trends for B2B Marketers appeared first on Chief Marketer.