Demand for B2B content has risen sharply over the past several years. That’s a boon for content marketers, but also a challenge. They need to make strategic choices about how to meet this demand, especially when resource constraints—limited time, people, and budget—remain a top content marketing challenge.

At Tendo, we’ve been tracking content-focused B2B marketing trends to advise our clients on the most cost-effective content strategies to drive significant marketing ROI. The data tells an interesting story. Yes, B2B content consumption has increased, but not for all audiences and not for all content types.

Here’s a key takeaway: To engage more customers and get the most from a limited budget, create more short-form content that’s easier to produce and distribute.

B2B Content Consumption Continues to Grow

According to Netline’s State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report, B2B content engagement has increased dramatically, with C-suite engagement growing 27% year over year. Overall demand for content has risen a whopping 84% over the past six years.

While e-books drove a large part of the demand, webinars also saw a sizeable increase in engagement. What it comes down to is connecting the right content format with different stages of the buyer’s journey—in other words, matching content to buyer intent. Case in point, Netline reports that infographics are 110% more likely to drive a purchase within a year, whereas e-book registrations are 12% less likely to lead to a purchase decision during that same timeframe.

Meanwhile, in Content Marketing Institute’s B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, enterprise marketers reported the types of content that produce the best results range from short-form content to lengthier pieces of content, specifically video (55%), case studies/customer stories (48%), short articles/posts (48%), e-books/white papers (48%), and research reports (45%).

B2B Audience Shift Towards Short-Form Content

Without a doubt, producing a diverse mix of content assets is the key to B2B content marketing success across the user journey. However, if resources are tight, consider focusing on short-form content that delivers relevant information and insights to your target audience. Think checklists, briefs, blog posts, short videos, images, and one-sheets.

Why? Not only is short-form content faster to produce at a lower cost, but in today’s increasingly self-service, short-on-time environment, B2B buyer preferences are reflecting a shift towards more condensed, snackable, and shareable content. A recent Demand Gen Report Content Preferences Benchmark Survey found that prospects and buyers place the greatest value on short-form content in their decision-making process. It also found short-form content to be the most appealing among its respondents.

Digging deeper, the survey revealed that blog posts and news articles are the most preferred content types during the early phases of the buyer’s journey, while case studies led the way across the middle stages. Demo videos got the most traction among prospects and buyers in the late stages of the customer journey.

Short-Form Content’s Key Role in Your Digital Strategy

As we head into a new year, it’s the perfect time to start thinking strategically about how best to leverage your likely limited content marketing budget most effectively. Keep in mind that on-screen attention spans continue to shrink—from two and half minutes on average in 2004 to about 47 seconds (or less) now. Couple this decrease in audience attention with the fact that people can remember 65% of information when it’s presented visually versus just 10% of text-based information three days after consuming it.

In today’s attention economy, it really does make sense to double down on concise, insightful digital content presented in a visually rich and engaging way.

Need Support for Your B2B Content?

Whether your marketing budget is big or small, Tendo can help you craft actionable content strategies and plans, then provide content creation services to deliver against those plans, just has we have for some of the world’s leading B2B brands. Reach out to get dedicated support and expertise towards meeting your unique goals. Contact us today.

First published November 20, 2020