Content consumption in the B2B space has accelerated rapidly over the past two years. Consider this statistic: According to NetLine Corporation’s 2022 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report published this week, consumption increased more than nine percent from 2020 to 2021, with total demand for B2B content rising 33 percent since 2019.

But whether marketers are successful at reaching B2B decision-makers through content marketing tactics depends on a multitude of factors, including the specific format preferred by buyers, the level of purchasing intent, the buyer’s specific job function, and much more. Following are highlights from the report, which analyzed data from approximately 13,000 pieces of content from 300 industries, processed by its syndication lead generation network.

Job Function

As expected, information technology professionals were the most active job function when it came to consuming B2B content, representing 28 percent of the total audience. Breaking it down further, 12.6 percent worked in IT systems management, 6.6 percent were network/server administrators and 6.4 percent were involved in software/system architecture.

The “executive” job function experienced a lift in 2021, increasing by nearly 20 percent to represent 13 percent of the total audience consuming content. Additionally, CEOs represented 10.7 percent of the total audience, and the consumption of B2B content by C-level executives overall rose 15.8 percent year-over-year. The industry categories that recurred the most after IT and executives were education, engineering, human resources and finance.

Interestingly, though it wasn’t ranked as a top-10 job function, biotech industry professionals—presumably in light of COVID-19 vaccines becoming available in 2021—requested about 26 percent more content than they did in 2020, according to the report.

Job Level

Drilling down further into target audience statistics, 40 percent of all content consumption came from C-level users (14.8 percent), managers (13.3 percent) and directors (12.5 percent). In terms of year-over-year increases, directors consumed 27.8 percent more content and C-level users consumed an additional 15 percent. The most active job level—for the sixth consecutive year—was “individual contributor,” representing 25.5 percent of the audience.

Format

When examining format, the most popular content type was eBooks, accounting for more than 43 percent of all buyer registrations, followed by guides (8 percent), cheat sheets (8 percent), tips and tricks guides (7 percent) and white papers (7 percent). Interestingly, the consumption of cheat sheets grew by 56 percent year-over-year. When looking at the webinar format, total buyer registrations increased 63 percent year-over-year, while virtual event registrations increased by 139 percent.

Buyer Intent

The amount of time it takes for buyers to invest in services is another data point warranting consideration by B2B content marketers. The report notes that approximately 31 percent of respondents expect to make purchases in the next 12 months. Within that subset, 55 percent will take 6-12 months, 26 percent will take 3-6 months and 19 percent will take less than three months.

Additional highlights from the report:

*Though the volume of B2B content is increasing, the time spent consuming those assets of content is expanding as well. In 2021, it took users 12 percent more time to open a piece of content they’d requested than the year prior—on average, 33.3 hours versus 29.7 hours in 2020.

*Looking at when content is most frequently reviewed throughout the week, the report notes that Wednesdays are the most popular day, followed closely by Mondays and Tuesdays. Approximately 90 percent of consumption happens during the work week.

*Keyword trends for 2021, ranked in order of interest, included pandemic, virtual, next generation sequencing (NGS), artificial intelligence (AI) and construction financial.

*Content is being consumed overwhelmingly via desktop, the report revealed, representing nearly 93 percent of engagements. That’s up from 74 percent in 2020.

Editor’s Note: Chief Marketer’s parent company Access Intelligence uses NetLine Corporation’s lead generation services.

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But when it comes to the quality of that content, 43 percent of marketers surveyed said only some of it hits the mark and drives value. The percentage of marketers rating their organizations’ content as exceptional or good came in at 41 percent, and 16 percent said they struggle to create content that provides value for customers.

The report, called “Turning a Creative Eye on Content ROI,” surveyed 195 global marketing leaders in a variety of industries, including information technology, professional services, financial services, manufacturing and education. Respondents’ market focus was mostly B2B (56 percent) and both B2B and B2C (29 percent), with 16 percent of marketers contributing to the survey focused on B2C exclusively.

Content is an integral part of the marketing mix. The majority of respondents, 61 percent, said that content communicates brand promise and value for their organizations. Marketing content is also used for delivering thought leadership (51 percent), is the cornerstone of how their businesses communicate with customers, prospects and partners (45 percent) and powers demand generation or lead acquisition strategies (42 percent).

It also differentiates businesses’ products and services, according to 40 percent. The marketing strategies that rely on effective brand content the most are demand generation (77 percent), sales and sales enablement (53 percent), customer loyalty programs (40 percent) and customer service and support (40 percent), according to the survey.

But challenges to creating content that drives value for brands remain—and many marketers are finding it difficult to determine whether or not the content resonates. Having the budget to develop high-quality, robust content at scale was the top challenge (47 percent), followed by knowing whether the content created is influencing and engaging their target audience (43 percent) and the ability to translate thoughts and concepts into reality (38 percent).

Being able to measure true content ROI against business goals was another top challenge, according to 36 percent of marketers surveyed. In fact, if respondents had to choose only one challenge to be resolved, it would be knowing what content resonates (21 percent), followed by budget (20 percent) and measuring true ROI (16 percent).

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Content Consumption and Production Trends for B2B Marketers
• How Interactive Content for B2B Marketing Will Leap Forward with 5G
• Data on Digital Creative, Media Consumption and Consumer Confidence During Covid-19 Crisis

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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.

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