Mid-Year Roundup: Stories On New Content Framework, Buyer Personas And Buyer Behavior Among Top Picks

Reaching the halfway point of 2014, content plays a vital role in many of the stories in this mid-year roundup of Demand Gen Report’s top trending articles. Primarily, content is being leveraged to bridge the gap between the marketing and sales teams, while also providing companies with the data they need effectively nurture and target prospective buyers.

Let’s take a look at the top 15 articles for the first half of the year:

1. The 2014 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey

Demand Gen Report collected data from a total of 150 B2B buyers who shared their experience and insight on this year’s common buying patterns — and what trends affect them the most. Key findings show that B2B buyers are more satisfied with the buying process than they were a year ago, despite the sales cycle getting longer.

2. The IBM-Silverpop Acquisition

IBM’s purchase of Silverpop was the most talked-about acquisition as the year kicked off. While rumors of the acquisition leaked in mid-March, the popular service confirmed their intentions several months later. The estimated $270 million deal builds for entertaining competition in the marketing automation industry.

3. B2B Buyer Personas Getting More Complex

Buyer personas are growing more and more complicated as the B2B buyer’s role continues to broaden within their organization. Content plays key roles in the buying process, giving buyers a better understanding while they research for the right product. In fact, consulting firm KERN states that the average buyer will download anywhere from 10 to 14 pieces of content during their research process.

4. SiriusDecisions Summit 2014: New Frameworks For Successful Content Marketing

Matthew McKenzie, Chief Content Officer of Content4Demand, shared several of his lessons learned from this year’s SiriusDecisions Summit in Orlando, Fla. The event covered a wide array of trends and pain points that the B2B industry have witnessed throughout the past year, primarily in the areas of content marketing, buyer personas and data management.

5. B2B Marketers Look To Personalize Web Content By Company, Industry And Role

The content marketing landscape has grown convoluted with an oversaturation of generic content. In order to give prospective buyers a pleasant experience that can ultimately lead to a sale, B2B marketers are looking to personalize their content to make sure that their content makes an impact on a buyer’s decision. Segmenting the content greatly aids B2B marketers in creating content targeted towards individuals instead of massive groups.

6. Content Is The Next Frontier In Aligning Sales And Marketing

One of the most common pain points for B2B organizations is the misalignment of sales and marketing. This often leads to miscommunication between the company and prospective buyers — creating inconsistent messages that can easily turn a buyer away from your product or services. Content has slowly turned into the tool companies need to bridge the gap between marketing and sales, helping keep everyone on the same page and keeping messages consistent.

7. B2B Marketers Tap Into Advocates To Help Fuel The Sales Pipeline

B2B organizations are slowly beginning to adopt B2C trends to engage prospective buyers in a personalized manner. A great example of this is the growth of customer loyalty and brand advocacy in the B2B landscape. The voice of a brand advocate ultimately carries more weight compared to a sales team, so B2B companies are now finding the added benefits of building advocacy programs to help educate the community from a neutral voice — and help close more deals.

8. Three Factors To Successful Email Marketing: Relevant Content, Timing And Frequency

Email marketing has come a long way since the old fashioned batch-and-blasts that clogged many prospective buyers’ inboxes. Now B2B marketers have found more effective means to personalizing the email experience, and the role of content is — once again — critical towards successfully making an impact on the buyer’s decision.

9. As Big Data Evolves, B2B Marketers Focus On Data Management

Although Big Data has been a part of the lead generation and nurturing process for quite some time, many B2B marketers are still developing strategies for managing and leveraging the influx of information they are collecting on prospects. This story highlights key trends that marketers are following  to create a standard practice for measuring and effectively using their data.

10. Unbiased, Timely Content Key To Curation Success

Prospective buyers are demanding for content when they research for their company’s next big purchase. However, many B2B marketers fall into the habit of creating all of their content on their own. Content curation has grown into a key practice for content marketers in order to make their message more credible—and ultimately help the brand grow as thought leaders in the industry.

11. The 2014 Content Preferences Survey

B2B buyers are placing a greater emphasis on visual content throughout the purchasing lifecycle, and are accessing content much more frequently from smartphones and tablets. These trends are some of the key findings in Demand Gen Report’s 2014 Content Preference survey, which highlights the insights of more than 100 B2B buyers and their content expectations.

12. Next Step For Sales And Marketing Alignment: Content To Drive Sales Conversions

Marketing and sales alignment is a major hurdle that B2B organizations must overcome in order to see success on the bottom-line. This article highlights how content has grown into a tool that helps guide buyers along their journey, and how both the marketing and sales teams need to understand this journey in order to create a consistent brand message.

13. Successful Predictive Lead Scoring Requires Rich Data

Lead scoring rests on the quality of the data; however, many marketers are still relying on the generic vanity metrics to score their leads. Marketers are now realizing that other metrics can be utilized in order to get predictive, highlighting prospective buyers that show the most potential to make a purchase.

14. Video And Interactive Content Help Reveal Buyers’ Digital Body Language

Content has grown into an integral part of the B2B marketing process. However, the industry has become oversaturated with generic content that is hindering the buyer’s purchasing experience. Highly visual video content, and interactive content that requests the audience to do more than just read and retain information, have grown in popularity among content marketers — enhancing the buyer experience and aiding them down the buyer funnel.

15. Two Eloqua Co-Founders Launch New Social Selling Platform

Building off of an industry where personalized engagement is the key to success, Eloqua co-founders Steve Woods and Paul Teshima announced via Twitter that they have left the marketing automation provider in order to start Nudge Software. The social selling platform will aid B2B organizations with social media engagement that will help build relationships, and close more deals.

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