Survey: B2B Marketers Get the Most Value Out of Content Early in the Buyer’s Journey

B2B marketers are heavily invested in content marketing and utilizing it to generate leads, but at what stage of the buying process is this tactic most effective?

To find out when content marketing is best used, the Content Marketing Institute and Scribble Live recently published the “Content Marketing for Demand Generation Survey: Using Content Marketing to Generate Demand, Create New Audiences” report. As it turns out, the majority of B2B marketers (51 percent) claim that the “early stage” (generating awareness/interest) is the stage in the buyer’s journey where their organization receives the most value from content marketing used for demand generation.

When it comes to the types of content that are most effective in the “early stage,” most B2B marketers (73 percent) cited blog posts/articles, followed by podcasts (57 percent) and ebooks (56 percent).

In the “late stage” of the buyer’s journey, case studies (40 percent) appear to be most effective, followed by in-person events (32 percent) and other types of content (27 percent).

Marketers Continue to Invest in Content Marketing

Regardless of its effectiveness in various stages of the buying process, content marketing as a whole can have a significant impact on companies’ bottom lines. That being said, previous research suggests that marketers are investing more in content to achieve this goal.

Advertiser Perceptions conducted a survey of 300 marketers and found that one-third of them increased their spending on content marketing over the pat 12 months. About 53 percent of marketers are spending the same, and only eight percent are spending less.

Out of the various types of content marketing, most respondents (51 percent) said that they are using digital native advertising. About 20 percent cited thought leadership, while 12 percent named ebooks and white papers.