Which content marketing formats support B2B buyers?

Chart of the Day: Research showing the popularity of different types of content assets are used during B2B vendor service selection

Our poll featured in our digital marketing trends 2018 post showed the ongoing popularity of content marketing as a technique with marketers. This research, looks at content popularity from a different angle, the popularity of different forms of content assets during the buying process.

This visual is 'numbers' heavy, but the orange shading helps show the most popular types of content.

Which content formats are most popular?

Considering which content types are most popular, we can see that most types of content are useful to someone! This suggests the importance of using content mapping as a technique to align the right types of content with the right persona and stage of the buying process as covered in the templates and examples in our persona guide and template.

It's no surprise that whitepapers, e-books and case studies are relatively popular. It IS surprising that webinars are comfortably seen as the most important technique. Whether these are demos, case studies or thought leadership isn't clear. But perhaps that's the point, webinars remain a versatile technique that can be used at different points in the buying process.

Research details

• Source: 2018 Content preferences report
• Sample: The Demandgen report 2018 Content Preferences Survey was conducted in Q1 2018 and surveyed 168 B2B marketing and sales professionals. Eighteen percent of the respondents hold C-level positions in their company, while 17% hold VP-level positions. More than half of the respondents either hold director-level (26%) or manager-level (29%) positions.
• Recommended Smart Insights resource: Content marketing strategy guide