By Rieva Lesonsky
Does content drive B2B purchase decisions? Looking at the data in NetLine’s (a lead gen company) 2023 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report, the answer is yes. The report, gleaned from 38,000 B2B professionals, shows that the more B2B content your audience consumes, the more likely they are to make a purchase decision.
Frank Strong, a public relations and marketing consultant, analyzed NetLine’s behavioral and survey data concerning B2B content and buyer intent. The three findings Strong finds most significant are:
- B2B content consumption continues to grow.
- B2B content consumption is tightly linked to purchase decisions.
- The format of the B2B content being consumed signals an intent to purchase.
Let’s take a deeper look.
B2B content consumption continues to grow
While Strong says there’s been some concern in the industry over “content shock and content fatigue,” the demand for B2B content keeps growing, and consumption was up in 2022—18.8%, according to the report.
The report shows which specific content formats attracted the most users last year:
- e-books: drew 33% of all registrations (people signing up to receive the content), but down 10% from 2021
- Guides: up 75.4%
- White papers: up 21%
- Cheat sheets: up 16.1%
And who is consuming the content? The top 10 industries that increased their content consumption the most were:
- Information technology
- Executives
- Human resources
- Business
- Engineering
- Education
- Finance/accounting
- Marketing
- Sales
- Medical & health
Strong believes there are three primary reasons driving this increased demand for content. According to Strong:
1. Content is weak. “A lot of B2B content is weak. It’s written to please executives rather than to connect with buyers. It’s really hard to argue that their salesy approach to content isn’t going to land with prospects, so you have to let the content fail to create a learning opportunity.”
2. Content is stale. “Content goes stale. Things change faster and faster, so new content has to be developed to stay fresh. Consistency matters more than frequency.”
3. Different people require different types of content. “Not everyone learns the same way. When I was in grade school, I struggled to understand algebra, and I slid by with a C. The next year I had a new teacher who explained things in a different way, and it clicked for me and got me caught up. That happens with B2B content too.”
B2B content consumption is tightly linked to purchase decisions
The NetLine report starts on a positive note, and says in the seven years it has been producing this report, they learned that “content consumption is directly correlated with future investment. [It] is directly driving investments within the next 12 months. The more your audience consumes, the more likely they are to be closing in on a purchase decision.”
In addition to the 12-month purchase intention cited by 33% of respondents, 18.8% say they plan to “make additional investments within the next six months.”
Based on this data, Strong advises B2B business owners to use the NetLine study as a benchmark and “take a good look at their downloads.” Since, he says, it’s already Q2, about 20% of people who’ve downloaded your offering will likely make a purchasing decision before the year ends.
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The format of the B2B content being consumed signals intent to purchase
Strong says the report offers clues so you can “figure out which content indicates registrants are close to a decision.” The NetLine report says there is a “clear connection between a user’s choice in
format and their readiness to buy. The “content formats more likely associated with immediate buying decisions” include:
- Software trials
- Survey reports
- Best practices
- Special reports
- How-to guides
- White papers
- Webinars (live and on-demand)
Registering for a webinar is a clear indicator of intent to purchase, according to the NetLine report:
- Users registering for live webinars are 22% more likely to be correlated with a purchase decision within the next three months.
- Users registering for on-demand webinars are 50% more likely to invest within the next six months than those choosing other formats.
Plus, NetLine says, “White paper registrations remain a tremendous indication that a user is in a late stage of a purchasing decision.” And it adds that while newsletters didn’t make the top 10 content formats, “newsletter registrations increased a staggering 307.2% year-over-year. Clearly, this format is growing in popularity across the board.”
NetLine says newsletters “specifically offer value-props (i.e., simplicity, email access, and audience data) which other content formats, currently, cannot match. Look for this figure to continue to rise as more creators turn to the format.”
There are also content formats that are less likely to be associated with an immediate buying decision. Some of these may surprise you.
- Courses
- Tips and tricks
- Reports
- Guides
- Checklists
- Trend reports
- Cheat sheets
But Strong cautions that just because a particular content format doesn’t lead to an immediate buying decision, some of these formats “are probably fueling the top-of-funnel. B2B marketing leaders have to invest in the full cycle of content that attracts, converts, and retains customers. If the content in the ‘attract’ categories dries up, eventually, so will the number of prospects in the ‘convert’ phase.”
Hot B2B topics
The 10 topics that attracted the most customers:
- 33.1% Information technology (IT)
- 8.2% Marketing
- 7.6%. Human resources
- 7.4% Finance
- 6.6% Operations
- 6.0% Management
- 4.8% Sales
- 4.2% Manufacturing
- 3.8% Healthcare & medical
- 2.8% Engineering
The consumption gap
NetLine defines the “consumption gap” as “the time between the moment content is requested and the moment it’s opened for consumption.” And, it says, “After consecutive years of increased consumption times, consumption time decreased significantly in 2022. That’s a very good thing.”
Last year the consumption gap “plummeted” 4.6 hours, from 33.3 hours to 28.7 hours—a 13.8% improvement, mimicking the pre-pandemic years. In 2021, during the pandemic, the consumption gap was the longest it has ever been. But 2022’s 28.7 hours consumption gap is close to 2019’s 28.5 hours.
Small business interest soars
C-suite-level consumers from businesses with 100 employees or less requested 96% more content in 2022 versus 2021. NetLine advises businesses looking to find more B2B customers to:
- Find their niche.
- Understand what customers are most interested in.
- Be ready to execute.
If you do that, it says, you’ll likely find that [segment] of the market ready to buy now.
About the Author
Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media and SmallBusinessCurrents.com and has been covering small businesses and entrepreneurship for over 30 years. Get more insights about business trends by signing up for her free Currents newsletter.
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