New CMO Council and NetLine report of business buyers finds peer-based organisations and their industry papers are the most trusted content sources, even as marketers raise their content marketing spend worldwide
Business buyers continue to give vendors poor marks for value and trustworthiness when it comes to their online content, a new CMO Council survey claims.
According to the Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing Field produced by the CMO-focused industry association and content syndication group NetLine, 67 per cent of business buyers rate peer-powered organisations as among their most trust content sources, compared to nine per cent who named vendor whitepapers. In addition, 50 per cent cited papers from industry organisations as trusted and valued types of information, followed by customer case studies (48 per cent), analyst reports (44 per cent) and independent product reviews (41 per cent).
Eight-eight per cent of respondents also saw online content as playing a major to moderate role in vendor selection, while 28 per cent share content with more than 100 colleagues and 31 per cent with 25 to 100 people.
The report was based on an online survey of more than 400 business buyers worldwide and aimed at getting a better understanding on business-to-business (B2B) content sourcing behaviour. The CMO Council said the survey was triggered by the estimated US$16.6bn spent by B2B marketers on digital content publishing aimed at acquiring business leads, influencing customers and educating and engaging prospects.
While marketers are spending as much as a quarter of their marketing budgets on content creation, they still lack the sufficient competencies and cohesive strategies to deliver effectively for their organisation, the CMO Council claimed.
A recent report by Altimeter Group also reached the conclusion that organisations are failing in their content marketing quest by lacking the strategic or tactical capabilities to be successful.
The council advised organisations to develop well-conceived, customer-centric themes and subject areas, strong content origination capabilities and partnership, more effective delivery networks and measurable content performance tracking systems. As an example of a more successful approach, the report outlined a content-driven customer nurturing program at DocuSign, which helped reduce customer churn by 65 per cent and drove a 25 per cent improvement in corporate sales.
“Improving content relevance and performance is a strategic imperative for B2B marketing organisations,” the council’s executive director, Donovan Neal-May commented.
“B2B buyers are looking for content that is original, consultative and highly pertinent to where they are in their decision-making process. Too many vendors are failing these buyers with overly promotional and overly technical content that doesn’t adequately address market challenges and customer needs.”
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia
In this latest episode of our Conversations over a Cuppa with CMO series, we catch up with Jane Power, who stepped into the director of marketing and transformation role at GenesisCare in April 2020.
Understanding the core principles of Behavioural Economics will give players in the travel industry a major competitive advantage when restrictions lift and travellers begin to book again. And there are a few insights in here for the rest of the marketing community, too.
Unicorns, the Sunken City of Atlantis, Zeus: They are very famous. So famous in fact, that we often think twice about whether they are real or not. Sometimes if we talk about something widely enough, and for long enough, even the strangest fiction can seem like fact. But ultimately it is still fiction - stories we make up and tell ourselves over and over until we believe.
At a time of uncertainty and economic hardship, customer retention takes on much greater importance. CX Lavender’s Linda O’Grady examines the big grey area between ‘all’ and ‘best’ customers when deciding who is worth fighting for and how.
looking for the best quality of SMM Panel ( Social Media Marketing Panel ) is a website where People Buy Social Media Services Such as Fa...
Kavin kyzal
How to manage social media during Covid-19
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Definitely bookmarked for future reading! Check this website https://a2designlab.com/ with lots of ...
Pierce Fabreverg
Study: Gen Z are huge opportunity for brands
Thanks for sharing. You might want to check this website https://lagimcardgame.com/. An up and coming strategic card game wherein the cha...
Pierce Fabreverg
Board games distributor partners with Deliveroo in business strategy pivot
Such an important campaign, dyslexia certainly need more awareness. Amazing to see the work Code Read is doing. On the same note we are a...
Hugo
New campaign aims to build understanding around scope and impact of dyslexia
Great Job on this article! It demonstrates how much creativity, strategy and effort actually goes to produce such unique logo and brandin...
Pierce Fabreverg
Does your brand need a personality review? - Brand vision - CMO Australia