Defining the boundaries
Some sources say a blog post of 1,000 words is long-form content; others put the limit at 1,200. Our team sets the minimum amount of words at 2,000 for an asset to fall into the long-form category.
Some argue that a case study is long-form, while others disagree.
However, the upside is that dwelling on an exact word count is unnecessary. A whitepaper of 1,876 words is as long-form as one of 2,003 words, and incorporating filler text solely to match a word count criteria is not advisable. Effective content delivers value with every word, and the only reason behind defining long-form content with your team is to ensure alignment when assessing content performance.
For the purposes of this report, we define long-form content as pieces over 2,000 words, including whitepapers, guides, reports, webinars, podcasts, research papers, magazines, eBooks, and any non-written content longer than 10 minutes.
The strategic advantages of long-form content
Search engines will favour the depth of content, and there’s more room for strategically placed keywords in the text.
With long-form, dwell time increases. The more time users spend engaging with content, the more likely they are to complete a goal: click the contact button, comment, or share. In fact, research suggests that articles between 3,000 and 10,000 words get the most shares on social media.
Consistently producing high-quality, in-depth content strengthens the position of authority in the segment, encouraging potential customers to return regularly for more insights, also leading to an increased retention rate.
Long-form content is an effective method of sharing all the relevant facts and insights, including data, customer stories, or features.
More informed readers are highly likely to convert. An Isoline client increased conversion rates and generated 1:7 ROI with long-form content.
Long-form content is a platform to promote product portfolios and a source for your potential customers to enrich their knowledge. The higher the perceived value of the content piece, the greater the likelihood that users will provide their contact details in exchange for access if the content is gated. But leads naturally come from high-quality ungated content, too (more on this later).
This tactic is extremely helpful for SEO, easier site navigation, and boosting dwell time. Hook your reader with insightful content journeys.
Methodology
For this report, we explored the content hubs and resource centres of 50 of the world’s leading tech B2B brands from the following sectors: telecommunications, IoT, cloud solutions, retail technologies and broadcast/ OTT.
- Number of pieces produced.
- Types of content produced.
- To ensure data standardisation, we defined the following content types: whitepapers, guides, reports, webinars, podcasts, research papers, magazines, eBooks, and any non-written content longer than 10 minutes.
- Gating strategies.
- Gating refers to the need to provide personal / contact information in order to view or download the content.
- Whitepapers in focus: how do these assets get gated?
All data was recorded and analysed in Microsoft Excel.
We only benchmarked content produced in English, as it is the dominant language for marketers in international companies aiming to capture audiences’ attention across geographies. All 50 brands fall into this category. Research from Statista indicates that more than half of all websites are in English, and this report mentions that over 43% of blogs published on WordPress are in English.
When reading through the results, you may observe that we’ve blurred logos or any brand attributes when providing examples. We did this to avoid revealing gated content produced by the chosen brands.
Additionally, the results of this study can’t be generalised, but they do work well as a benchmark of current content trends and practices across tech B2B.
Next, the detailed findings.