Study on content marketing proves: Everything is different!

Marketers develop content they don't want to read themselves

The latest BMA Buzz, the newsletter of the American Bussiness Marketing Association, reports on a study with surprising results conducted by The Economist Group in collaboration with Peppercomm. This study with more than 1000 decision makers in companies, especially from marketing, brought it to light: Content marketing can contribute to brand building, but little to sales, because decision makers want insights, e.g. study results, but in no case clumsy sales advertising. They prefer to read content on laptops and computers. They prefer text to video.

Great promises, but still wrong understanding

Meanwhile, many B2B marketers, like most B2C marketers, have gotten carried away with the promises of content marketing. Activities and budgets in this field have exploded. Further increases are planned, also by the respondents. But all too many fundamental mistakes are being made in the process. Target audiences are turning away. Jeff Pundyk, the study director at The Economist points out, "Too many marketers and agencies haven't really understood the potential of content marketing and how content needs to be designed to appeal."

Study of 1000 top decision makers

In the study, 93% of the more than 1,000 respondents, all globally responsible B2B marketers and decision makers, say they not only want to maintain but increase investments in content marketing. And for most of the respondents, this is done with the aim of boosting sales, i.e. increasing leads and sales. 75% state that their strategy includes regularly praising or mentioning their products and services in content.

Contradiction: senders want to sell with content, recipients vehemently reject sales pitches

However, this is problematic and contrasts with their statements as recipients of such content messages. 71% testified that they feel repulsed when it comes across as a sales pitch. "That's not entirely unexpected, but such a strong emotional aversion is still surprising," says Jeff Pundyk.

Cause of misalignment: digital automation measures clicks and leads instead of brand building

There's also a possible explanation for why so many content marketers appear to be running in the wrong direction. Although 85% of respondents said that the top goal is brand building and creating a positive perception of their company, 70% also admitted that they measure the success of their content efforts by the number of callbacks from prospects or customers. Therein lies the problem: if brand building is the goal, then sales should not be the measurement criterion.

Social media has opened the door for content to be distributed to a large number of recipients via e-mail and social media channels. It enables mass distribution, which promises to replace advertising with a content model. However, this involves huge investments in marketing automation, and these must pay off. This, in turn, requires content measures that pay off in terms of the measurement criteria that can be verified with the systems, and these are, after all, clicks and leads. But that's exactly what the recipients of content marketing don't want.

Decision-makers want studies, strategies and experience reports

75% of business decision-makers said in the study that they primarily research study and research results. Strategic approaches and analysis are popular with 34% of respondents, particularly the views and experiences of their industry peers. Another 24% value analysis of complicated issues and new business topics in which they don't feel quite at home yet.

"Such content can very well enhance a brand's brand and reputation building, it may not directly lead to increased sales leads, but it can help close more deals eventually," says T. Birkhahn, one of the study's co-authors. Of course, that's harder to measure.

Content marketing is at its best when the information delivered is valued by readers or viewers as relevant and useful. Then those readers keep coming back to the publication. Even if the content doesn't link directly to the products and services, it's about getting the brand into the minds and hearts of those it's selling to. It's also about gaining credibility for being a good, intelligent, reliable source of interesting information.

The measurement criteria should be primarily focused on brand and reputation building. Then effective content marketing can also be designed. Then content and brand can cross-fertilize. In fact, 89% of business decision makers surveyed also said that the sender brand is very important to the acceptance of a content article.

Executives prefer text articles to video and read them on their computer rather than on their smartphone

Across the board, respondents prefer to read content in the form of articles (71%) , followed by research reports (51%) and newsletters (19%). Video is not popular, at least among the executives surveyed. 78% of this arguably slightly older group also say they read content on their laptop or desk-top computer, even though they all have smart phones.

Survey of representative B2B decision-maker group would lead us to expect even more extreme results

If this is already the case in the technological pioneer country of the USA, where most of the respondents probably come from, what is it like in our print-oriented Germany? And what results do you get if you don't ask the "early movers" from the marketing departments who have an interest in justifying their investments in content marketing, but the majority in the decision-making bodies in companies, the buyers, financial people and technical specialists?

The value of content marketing is being put into perspective

Even the present results put the value of content marketing in a different light. Content marketing is neither cheap nor can it replace advertising, as its protagonists would have us believe. This rule applies even more to the B2C sector, where content marketers try to score with entertainment in a very competitive environment. But content marketing, when designed correctly, is a valuable building block in the marketing mix that can be used to distinguish oneself as a "thought leader" and trustworthy partner, thus improving brand reputation and/or creating an emotional connection between brands and people through entertaining stories.