Dive Brief:
- Content marketing is an important channel for B2B marketing according to research by Qvidian, but marketers are finding its efficacy in closing deals a challenge.
- The study had close to 80% of respondents naming content marketing as "very important," but fewer than 40% saying the channel performed "very well" in terms of driving sales.
- The challenge for marketers is both creating content that addresses prospect needs, but that also introduces potential missed opportunities.
Dive Insight:
For content marketing, presentation is the key to effectiveness. Research from Corporate Visions from July found that the most effective content marketing tactic was messaging that met prospects’ needs. Forty-three percent of surveyed marketers said that that, followed up with content introducing an unconsidered or missed opportunity, was very effective. But less than 30% percent of those marketers reported using that tactic.
Last month Qvidian surveyed B2B content management and sales professional across the globe and found more than 77% stating content marketing was a “very important” channel for sales effectiveness. At the same time less than 40% of those respondents said content marketing performed “very well” in terms of actually closing deals.
One way marketers can ensure their content marketing efforts are effective is to actively test how that messaging performs with their specific audiences by benchmarking the metrics of email copy and website content.