Move The Needle
Why B2B thought leadership is critical to sales and how to make yours count.
PART 1
What the data tells us about B2B buying
%
That’s the amount of buying time spent meeting with potential suppliers by B2B customer stakeholders involved in complex purchases.
It’s a pretty small window of opportunity.
So how do they spend their time?
Doing online research, for one thing
%
Offline research, too
%
Building consensus across internal
+ partner stakeholders.
%
And that was before the global pandemic…
Here’s how the pandemic changed things
B2B decision makers use more channels than ever.
Source: McKinsey, B2B Sales: Omnichannel everywhere, every time
They’re more comfortable than ever online.
%
They’re willing to spend big through those remote or self-serve channels.
%
at least $50,000 on a single interaction
through remote or self-service channels.
35% would spend $500,000+.
Source: McKinsey, B2B Sales: Omnichannel everywhere, every time
And yet…
%
Source: Gartner survey
They’re online.
Your content is online.
What a chance to move the needle.
But it’s not happening.
What would it take to get B2B customers to act after engaging with your content?
Thought leadership that connects.
Because when it does, it moves the needle on sales.
PART 2
The data proves the value
Here are the top 3 actions senior executives take when thought leadership hits the mark.
They’ll review the companies’
specialties,
service offerings,
and capabilities
Source: Grist, The Value of B2B Thought Leadership Survey, October 2020
They’ll also buy.
After engaging with thought leadership
%
purchased a product or service they hadn’t previously considered buying.
Source: 2021 Edelman, LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study
%
increased the amount of business they were doing with an organization.
Source: 2021 Edelman, LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study
So how do you get customers to engage with your content?
Brace yourself…
By listening to them. And giving them the content and thought leadership they want.
PART 3
What B2B customers want in their content
(There’s a lot of data here, too)
1. Make it worth our time.
When it comes to vendors, 71% of B2B buyers are looking for companies that understand their challenges; 69% want education on how to overcome them.
Source: Cyance, The B2B Buyer Insights Report 2021 (UK)
So it stands to reason that valuable thought
leadership delivers understanding and education.
That is, great content is about them, not you.
Here are three questions to ask about each piece of thought leadership to determine whether it’s worth your audience’s time:
Why does your audience need this information?
This question delivers the what’s-in-it-for-them. Among the many potential answers, here’s one that’s not an option: “They find out how great our product and services are.”
Answers that will help you to move the need include identifying a task they’ll be able
to get done, or do better, after engaging with your content. Or new ways to tackle a challenge they struggle with.
Why engage with this content versus other content out there?
Articulate how your ideas and your content are different from other coverage of the topic. You want to take an approach that stands out from the rest
What will the audience learn that’s new, important, useful, or counterintuitive?
You’d be surprised how hard this question can be to answer. (Or maybe you wouldn’t.) But the answer is what ensures content is worth someone’s time.
2. Keep it objective.
There are two reasons to keep thought leadership separate from sales discussions.
One reason is that each is more productive without the other.
Audiences gain more insight when thought leadership stays focused on its mission to educate.
When you build credibility and affinity through your content, your audience is more receptive to information about your products and services.
The other reason to keep thought leadership and sales talk separate? Business customers can—and do—spot the difference a mile away
%
of buyers say the material they read is biased toward the vendor.
Source: Forrester, Will Your B2B Content Meet Buyer Expectations In 2022?
Aim to keep your content objective.
3. Give us thought leadership that connects.
In addition to connecting with audiences, content assets need to connect with each other.
One-offs fall short.
A video here, and a blog or infographic there, isn’t the content experience clients and prospects want.
%
of tech decision-makers said that short-form content is more valuable when it’s linked to more detailed studies.
The good news is that building a family of assets isn’t that hard.
Cornerstone content is one way.
Primary research provides the unifying theme that decision makers are looking for, and gives you a starting point to create additional assets that take a deeper dive into each key takeaway.
Structure each piece of content to add to the ideas in assets that came before.
Keep audiences engaged with your content by referring to other assets in the
narrative and embedding hyperlinks. Backlinks boost your SEO and get you to think
more cohesively about your thought leadership.
Chunk it up.
Distribute longer assets as short snippets of video or text. By breaking content into smaller
pieces, you get the connected content B2B audiences want and a better return on your investment in thought leadership.
The beauty of B2B audiences is that they’re crystal clear about what they want from thought leadership.
We don’t have to read minds.
We just have to listen, and give them what they want.
So we get the engagement we want.
And move the needle.
You’ve got this.
You need great content. Neon Street Studio can help.
Don't be a chicken. We'd love to hear from you.
© Neon Street Studio, 2020 | Website by Madeline Jacobson