How Content Marketing Has Changed Since COVID-19

We are now starting to see some really interesting research and findings coming through, looking at the impact that Covid-19 has had on marketing and in particular content marketing.

Events, telemarketing and other more traditional channel have struggled for some time to engage with senior decision-makers, but never has the move to inbound content and digital marketing strategies been so obvious.

2020 Content Preference Study from DemandGen and PathFactory’s Content Engagement Report, How COVID-19 changed B2B content consumption in 2020, both loom at these insights. Both reports are well worth a read in full but here’s a quick snapshot of some of the insights that leapt out for me…

DemandGen Content Preferences Study

Video tops the list for the first time, which is also now the most shareable format amongst B2B execs.

Top content formats B2B buyers have engaged with during the buying process:

• 76% Video
• 60% White papers
• 56% Blogs
• 54% Webinars
• 54% Case Studies
• 54% Research/Survey Reports
• 48% E-books

[Source: Demand Gen 2020 Content Preferences Study]

Top Content Formats – for researching purchases

For B2B execs researching a new solution here are their top content sources…

[Source: Demand gen Content Preferences Study]

As decision-makers move through the funnel there’s a slight change in what content is consumed – this is clear from the above where we see a shift between overall engagement and content that’s used specifically or researching procurement decisions.

This happens again when we see the stats for mid-funnel research Vs late-stage research:

Most popular formats for mid-stage research:

• 58% Assessments
• 50% Webinars
• 40% Case Studies
• 40% Interactive Content

Most popular formats for late-stage research

• 39% Case Studies
• 38% User Reviews
• 36% Analyst Reports
• 28% ROI Calculators

[Source: Demand Gen Content Preferences Study]

How consumption habits have changed

Finally, it’s really interesting (and perhaps obvious) to see that trustworthy, credible and shorter format content rank well.

Finally, from PathFactory’s content engagement report, it was found that more business consumed more content during the pandemic, with PathFactory evidencing that across all of their customers, they experienced:

• 17% more visitors
• 42% increase in the number of sessions
• 40% more unique assets viewed
• 15% more time spent reading and viewing content

It also evidenced how content consumption differs between ‘unknowns’ (unidentifiable by an email, so typically new visitors and an early buyer stage) and ‘knowns’ (where contact information was identified and therefore prospects who has engaged with content previously). As you’d expect new visitors are more likely to be interested in web pages, videos and infographics, whereas returning known visitors engage with lower funnel stage content like checklists, webinars and brochures.

In Conclusion, If ever there was a need to invest in fresh content – that’s educational, credible and trustworthy – now’s the time. For investing in the content that B2B exec want and engage with now, will reap massive rewards later.

If you’d like any help with your content marketing strategy or need an interim Head of Marketing to plug a resource gap get in touch.