5 Key Findings from The State of B2B Content for Growth Marketing
B2B marketers are trying harder than ever to get a decent return on their content investment. Based on a survey of 350 B2B organizations, a new research report from Demand Exchange and London Research looks at the state of content marketing maturity and how marketers can drive more successful outcomes.
Here are five key findings from The State of B2B Content for Growth Marketing report, published by London Research and Demand Exchange. The report is a follow-up to The State of B2B Lead Generation published earlier this year.
1. Content-based marketing activities need to be strategic rather than tactical
In companies defined as ‘lead generation leaders’, responsibility for commissioning content for lead generation is twice as likely to lie with a head of demand generation than at other companies (29% vs. 13%).
As the report makes clear, winning funding for content-based lead gen activities is one of the biggest problems marketers face, and is directly linked to the difficulty of proving the effectiveness and ROI of content.
Those in strategic roles with the most skin in the game are better able to explain the benefits of content marketing to senior management in the language they understand, and to ensure the necessary metrics are in place.
2. Look at the data to make the best possible decisions about your content
B2B companies need an overarching content strategy to provide relevant and personalized content for different members of the buying committee at different stages of the customer journey.
At the same time, B2B marketers need to keep a laser focus on return on content investment (‘roci’) so they can refine their activities and adapt their outputs based on an on-going understanding of the impact their content is having.
Leaders are nearly three times more likely than their mainstream counterparts to rate their ability to measure costs and ROI as ‘excellent’.
Organizations need a thorough grasp of the impact of different types of content in terms of the leads they are generating, and also the extent to which those leads are ultimately converting into sales. Close cooperation between marketing and sales is key.
In summary, decisions about what content is commissioned should be driven by measurement, analysis and attribution.
3. Invest in authoritative third-party content to boost credibility and drive more engagement
There is increasingly a temptation to use AI-generated content to power B2B growth marketing, but marketers must be wary of falling into the trap of producing bland and ‘synthetic’ outputs which are a turn-off for buyers.
Forrester has predicted that thinly customized genAI content will worsen the purchase experience for 70% of B2B buyers.
One of the headline findings from the report is that leaders in lead generation are 1.5 times more likely to commission co-branded independent content than are the mainstream (78% vs. 54%).
Lead generation leaders are also around 1.5 times more likely to say this co-branded content is more successful than the material they produce themselves (71% vs. 54%).
While there’s no substitute for an authentic and compelling story grounded in primary research, that’s not to say that research shouldn't be using AI to synthesize data and produce outputs more efficiently.
Our researchers harness GenAI to produce content in a range of formats quickly and cost-effectively, meaning our clients get the best of both worlds.
4. Know your ideal customer profile (ICP) and what they need
Research-based content – or for that matter any type of content – needs to be geared towards what your prospects and customers want at any given moment in time.
Forrester has calculated that 70-90% of the buyer's journey is complete before a customer engages with a vendor.
According to our research: “The emphasis in B2B marketing continues to move from a focus on your sales cycle to thinking about your customer’s buying cycle. At the same time, one-to-one contact with customers is diminishing as they carry out more and more of their buying process incognito.
“This makes it even more vital to stay in touch with what matters to them. Feedback from the sales team is crucial here, and is one of the many reasons for bringing sales and marketing together.”
5. Find the right balance between different content formats and channels
Part of the demand generation jigsaw puzzle for B2B marketers is getting to grips with the right balance of formats and channels to drive the best possible outcomes.
Content intelligence plays an important role here by helping you understand how popular your content is, but more importantly, the extent to which channels and formats such as webinars, whitepapers and video are resonating with the buyers.
And it’s not just the actual buyers you need to appeal to. You also need to engage the product or service users and any other influencers when it comes to decisions about purchasing your products or services.
Our research looks into effectiveness by channel, and there is little to choose between the top six which include email, paid search, events and LinkedIn.
Only four percentage points separate first-party email and paid search (both chosen by 28% of respondents) from webinars (24%). Live events (27%) can also be a crucial part of the mix. Whether you’re thinking about content formats or channels, it’s all about finding the right blend to meet the needs of the prospects you want to convert into customers.
The State of B2B Content for Growth Marketing is now available for download