What Content Do B2B Buyers Crave?

The pandemic has driven an insatiable need for high-value content among B2B product and service buyers. According to a new study, 55% of buyers said they now rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did one year ago.¹

Driving home this trend was the fact that 62% of the buyers surveyed said they engage with three to seven pieces of content before connecting with a salesperson. Of the most popular content formats, two thirds of the buyers polled said they had engaged with webinars over the past 12 months — a significant increase from last year. Other popular formats included E-books (56%), research/survey reports (55%) blogs (54%), white papers (52%), and case studies (49%).

The study reported that most buyers typically spend between 5 to 30 minutes reviewing nearly all content formats. The exception was webinars where 72% said they are willing to invest 30 to over 60 minutes.

In terms of presentation, respondents said vendors should organize content on their websites by issue/pain point (52%), topic (51%), and industry/vertical (46%) versus the traditional content format classification (18%).

Among content-sharing platforms, LinkedIn was the most popular for sending relevant content to colleagues or other members of the buying committee. Email was a close second

When asked about the key drivers for sharing content, respondents said content:

• Should include relevant/shareable links that can be shared immediately (48%)
• Must be packed with shareable stats and quick-hitting insights (42%)
• Should tell a strong story that resonates with the buying committee (41%)