It does not depend on the quality of the edition or how “friendly” are the texts to be used in our SEO strategy and thus obtain a good positioning, but there are other elements to take into account. That is what the leaders of B2B marketing tell us in a new study conducted by Optify through LinkedIn and they have just seen the light. What counts, according to the opinion of 81.5% of the respondents, is that it is interesting and that it tells convincing stories. Far behind are other criteria such as originality (52.6%) and content adequacy (49.2%).
This predilection for narrative explains why companies believe that broad content formats and personal contacts are most effective. Almost 80% of the interviewees consider that the study cases are very effective in attracting potential clients and get our message, followed by white books with 73% and events where it is possible to contact the participants, with 72%. In contrast, other formats such as infomercials (18%) and user communities (20%) are only seen as effective by a minority of responses, probably because they do not provide the same level of relationship.
The explanation of why content is so valued is because its marketing is viewed as critical when it comes to creating interactions and relationships with customers. According to an Ecoconsultancy study also made public this month and conducted in the UK, 84% of internal marketing managers in B2B and B2C companies agree with the idea that content marketing is key to time to create a good relationship with customers, and 74% also think that content marketing can be more effective than advertising when it comes to interacting with the customer.
Making interesting content may seem easy to do, but it is not. 53% of respondents from B2B marketing managers of the Optify study said that developing truly compelling content is the main challenge of an organization, but 56% said that more important was still the time and resources to do so .
In this line, in December 2011, a study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute revealed that 41% of B2B marketers recognized that crafting the right content to attract customers and prospects was its biggest challenge, far from others such as the production of sufficient content (20%) and having the necessary budget (18%).
The study of Optify has also allowed us to know that professional fairs and personal meetings benefit from the highest percentage of company budgets, followed by web pages and email marketing.
Most of the responses (92.5%) also acknowledge that they start from scratch when the content is elaborated, and that 4 out of 10 use external help to prepare it. The main types of materials that are entrusted to third parties are videos (33%) and white books and ebooks (32%), followed by case studies (26%).