Page 4 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

New research reveals how

marketers need to fine-tune

their content strategies to

effectively engage today’s

customer audiences

New content marketing research by the Chief Marketing channels, as well as vendor-branded technology
Officer (CMO) Council reveals insight-hungry business specifications, data sheets and use cases. This
buyers are increasingly reliant on trusted third-party in- group emerges as the segment most interested in
formation to make more educated decisions. The study summarized content, including infographics, video
also found that buyers tend to be clustered in distinctly and blog commentary.
different content sharing circles based on how the pur- 3. Decision Makers: Want to stay informed through
chasing process is being driven, as well as their levels research reports and analyst commentary but also
of collaboration and decision-making responsibility. expect to have access to data in order to speed
and enable better decision making in the tail end of
The research, conducted in partnership with NetLine the decision funnel.
Corporation, surveyed the online content sourcing and
sharing behaviors of 352 business buyers worldwide. It The research—conducted in partnership with NetLine
found that content downloaded from trusted sources on Corporation, a world leader in business content syndi-
the Internet was essential to pre-sales discovery, qualifi- cation—is just one indication that marketers need to
cation and selection of vendors. It also showed that the fine-tune their content strategies and capabilities as
sourcing, sharing and consumption of content occurred they seek to effectively engage today’s customer audi-
mostly among three types of informally structured buy- ences.
ing groups within enterprise organizations.
A new 39-page strategic brief based on this research—
These three sharing circles are actually led by organiza- entitled “The Content Connection to Vendor Selec-
tions where content radiates from the execution or mid- tion”—has been published by the CMO Council and
level of the organization outward, informing both senior NetLine to provide insights into how different types of
and junior/functional roles to gain alignment over vendor marketing content impact critical phases of vendor
selection. The three primary content sharing circles in- identification, qualification and consideration, as well as
clude: the path to selection and purchase.

 From the middle out (35%): Content sourcing and This can be downloaded from the CMO Council’s Con-
purchase decisions are driven by tactically focused tent ROI Center (http://www.cmocouncil.org/r/content-
executives, but senior management is informed connection-to-vendor-selection-media), a global re-
about how and why key decisions were made. source on best-practice knowledge and thought leader-
 From the bottom up (30%): Junior or mid-level man- ship.
agers source primary content and share upstream
to members of senior management, who then make “B2B marketers annually invest an estimated $16.6
the final purchase decision. billion in digital content publishing to acquire business
 From the top down (29%): Senior management con- leads, influence customer specification and considera-
tion, as well as educate and engage prospects,” notes
sumes content, sending information downstream for Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO
product identification and final purchase and execu- Council. “Despite spending about 25% of their market-
tion. ing budgets on content creation, most companies lack
These content sharing circles are being powered by the necessary strategies, competencies and best prac-
three key segments of content personas, each with their tices to effectively engage their markets, and very few
own behaviors, needs and expectations. have content performance metrics in place to measure
effectiveness and calculate ROI.”
1. Researchers: Primarily seek out the most broad
and expansive content and are focused on new in- The study validates earlier CMO Council research that
dustry reports and research to inform them of ad- revealed 88% of 400 business buyers believe online
vancements in solutions, trends impacting the mar- content plays a major to moderate role in vendor selec-
ket and opportunities for improvement. tion, yet just 9% of respondents think of vendors as

2. Influencers: Interested in both the broad thought trusted sources of content.
leadership consumed through trusted third-party
4 Asian eMarketing March 2014 - Social Media Marketing