According to the CMO Council and NetLine’s latest report, 87 percent of B2B buyers said content will have an impact on their purchasing online. 60 percent of respondents indicated that these elements will have a significant impact on them, while 27 percent of respondents said would have a certain impact on their purchase. Meanwhile, 35 percent of respondents believe that online content will be able to understand the customers’ needs and filter out the best suitable sellers. The importance of content marketing indicates that B2B sellers must understand what kind of content most influence buyers’ decisions.
This study focused on a variety of different angles of the attitudes of B2B content audience. One point of view is B2B buyers prefer online content that contains elements such as:
- The breadth and depth of information (47 percent);
- Whether the information can be easy to obtain, easy to understand and with a high readability (44 percent);
- Original content (39 percent).
B2B brands should avoid following the elements that users do not like:
- Excessive prerequisites before downloading (50 percent);
- Obvious and selfish promotion behavior (43 percent);
- No substantive content and lack of information or even having the wrong content (34 percent)
B2B sellers tend to commit the above errors, and only a handful of respondents said they believe the seller’s information. In fact, B2B buyers think that the following types of content are more valuable and trustworthy.
- Professional Association Research Report / White Paper (67 percent)
- Industry Group research report / White Paper (50 percent)
- Customer Case Studies (48 percent)
- Analyst Report / White Paper (44 percent)
- Independent product reviews (40 percent)
Only 9 percent of users said they trust the related content issued by sellers.
The most attractive content source that able to influence purchasing decisions is still by the related industry associations, such as:
- Professional associations and online communities (47 percent)
- Industry organizations and groups (46 percent)
- Online trading publications (41 percent)
- Tutorials and seminars (41 percent)
- Trade shows (35 percent)
Studies have shown the B2B sellers need to place more effort on original content for buyers, but cannot publish too many promotional content and other self-serving content. More than a quarter of buyers said they would share B2B content with more than 100 individuals; while more than 31 percent of buyers said they would share those content with 25-100 people. Data shows that B2B Content Marketing has been able to reach deal makers.
