B2B content trends: our takeaways
B2B content trends come and go, but the power of a beautifully crafted story remains constant.
Think back to the last piece of work that really stood out for you. Why was it so memorable? And what’s the first aspect or feature of that content that you remembered?
Chances are the campaign you’re thinking of told a story that kept you engaged. That’s the power of good content marketing. To generate interest, educate, inform, and then convert into solid results. Whether it’s through case studies, newsletters, social media, or explainer videos, content has a powerful role to play.
Long-form content, in particular, is highly effective at building awareness, driving engagement and helping nurture leads into deals. This becomes even more critical against a backdrop of budget cuts, longer sales cycles, and growing economic pressures.
To discover how long-form content is being used as a differentiator for brands, we analysed the content published by the 50 leading companies in the broadcast and OTT, telecoms, IoT, cloud solutions, and retail technology sectors in the 12 months between September 2023 and 2024.
We looked at pieces over 2,000 words – such as whitepapers, guides, reports, research papers, eBooks – alongside audio and video content of more than 10 minutes, such as webinars and podcasts.
Here’s a snapshot of our main takeaways.
Long-form content is flourishing
- The top 50 brands published a total of 1,353 pieces between them – an average of 27 assets per brand over 12 months, and more than two long-form pieces per brand each month.
- The IoT sector is a particularly prolific publisher, producing 604 assets in total in the past 12 months.
- Broadcast and OTT brands published the least at 75 pieces over the last year.
Multimedia and interactive content is king
- Content that drives interest, engagement, and nurtures relationships is the holy grail of long-form.
- Webinars were the top content type, making up 41% of all content produced. Podcasts came in second (22.5%) for much the same reason.
- Quality trumps quantity, every time. So think carefully about your objectives and prioritise creating high-quality content that will best achieve that aim.
There’s no clear winner in the ‘gate debate’
- The decision to gate assets varies widely across sectors and asset types.
- Telecoms brands gate the least: one in every five assets. Broadcast and OTT gate the most, at 56%.
- Whitepapers were the most gated asset, with brands in the cloud sector gating every single one.
Investing in long-form content that delivers value and insight is the key to converting leads. It’s critical to adopt a systematic approach in line with your sales and marketing goals and take the time to ensure that the content you’re creating and publishing is hitting its mark and delivering tangible value.
Keen to find out more insights? Read the full (ungated) ‘Short Story Long: Long-form content trends in tech B2B’ report.
If you’d like help crafting your long-form strategy, get in touch on hello@isolinecomms.com.
