Contact & content
PREFERENCES REVISITED
Over the years, various data suggests that B2B buyers often prefer not to engage and interact with others during the buying process.
You're likely to be familiar with statistics that claim things like "buyers complete '85'% of the purchasing process before engaging with a sales representative".
At Differentiated, we remain skeptical of these types of claims. That's because our experience consistently shows us that, fundamentally, people still buy from other people and the more complex the deal the greater the need for human interaction.
Over the years, various data suggests that B2B buyers often prefer not to engage and interact with others during the buying process.
You're likely to be familiar with statistics that claim things like "buyers complete '85'% of the purchasing process before engaging with a sales representative".
At Differentiated, we remain skeptical of these types of claims. That's because our experience consistently shows us that, fundamentally, people still buy from other people and the more complex the deal the greater the need for human interaction.
Both last year and this year, the data from Art and Science backs this up:
Whilst in 2024 there has been a slight increase across the board on preferences for self-serve content alone, it remains a minority choice in comparison to interactions with other people across all buying process steps, bar one.
In short, people do want to interact with other people at every stage of the buying process.
There’s still time.
Last year we were extremely surprised by the amount of time people spent consuming marketing content. On average they spent 1 hr 30 minutes per day doing so, and this year it was even more:
Average time spent reading or consuming marketing content:
1 hour 48 minutes
per day
In fact, the percentage of people consuming 2 hours or less per day is down over last year, but the amount who spend 2 hours or more is significantly up (from 17% to 37%), so overall the average is up:
Average: 1.8 hours = 1 hour 48 minutes
Average: 1.5 hours
Average: 1.8 hours = 1 hour 48 minutes
Average: 1.5 hours
In a slight shift to last year’s data, we wanted to understand if there was any preference on who had written the content. In short, are your customers reading your content or your competitors?
The good news is that most of their time is spent consuming content that you have generated. The bad news is that if you combine your competitors’ content with others such as industry influencers, analysts and consultants, your content is in fact consumed in the minority.
This means you need to ensure your content remains relevant and on point for your customers, and the cut-through you need is still considered.
There’s no room for complacency.
say solutions providers can better build trust by treating them with empathy as a human rather than a buyer or sales target.
But what are the preferred formats?
After all, it is a key aspect of our approach to the research. For 2024, the preferred formats for marketing content from solution providers were:
We made a slight adjustment in the choices provided for 2024, simply to distinguish between content that is purely online (e.g. blogs, web pages, digital documents) from other types of content that are hosted online. Last year there was a clear preference for digital content overall, and in 2024 this still remains the case with web content a preference for 50%.
Case studies were the top format last year but were top with a percentage of 40%. So, whilst their league table position has dropped, they aren’t markedly less important for people, it’s just that other formats have a greater share.
This particularly seems to be the case for formats that are more people-driven such as events and analysis: in person style events are up by 9%, and amongst a number of movers, webinars has remained largely static. Analyst insights are up by 8% over last year, and whitepaper style content is as popular as it was previously.
Still thinking of doing a podcast?
Last year it was the least preferred format overall, whereas this year its popularity is up by 8% - all of which is driven by an increase in popularity amongst the CIO/CTO audience. Last year it was a preference for only 14% of the C-suite. This year it is a preference for 36%.
Use your own judgement.
Digital content preferences
At Differentiated, we've often wondered whether designing for print is still necessary, given that most content is now hosted online. To explore this, we asked: when it comes to digital content you're interested in, what format do you typically prefer?
Whilst there’s still a clear preference for consuming content in familiar formats such as PDF, there is a lack of appetite for it to be consumed truly ‘offline’ in paper format. As we thought, we shouldn’t be designing it for consumption on paper, but rather on screen. There is a healthy proportion of people who want purely digital content that they can bookmark – which is the main preference for members of the c-suite at 48%.
