B2B 101 - the person making a decision is still a person.

In the context of an article I've been asked to contribute to I've been doing some work looking at the role of content in the B2B decision making process. I've been focused on examples of well-produced, entertaining, immersive pieces of content that have significantly outperformed more traditional-style (dry) B2B content. There are (only) a few great examples, but in searching for some data to quantify why richer content outperforms even in a B2B context I found two key points of reference:

1. This infographic from Fortune/Gyro:

2. Is eConsultancy's How to Fix a $50bn B2B marketing problem, which provides a useful 4-step construct to building effective B2B content programs... with a 5th step of automating steps 1 through 4.

The later references an interesting study from SiriusDecisions that suggests 60-70% of all B2B content produced is never used. With understanding of the data in point 1 and the approaches in point 2 there are some simple strategies B2B marketers can employ to be much more effective... after all, the bar is clearly set pretty low.