Showpad recently surveyed 504 medium- to large-sized businesses across the U.S. and Europe to explore the links between sales enablement content and customer experience. Among many other interesting insights (like this one), we learned that 80 percent of marketers and sales professionals think content can effectively achieve one or more of the following key objectives:
- Convert potential customers and secure repeat sales.
- Market products or services to potential customers.
- Build overall reputation and brand health.
What’s so profound about this? Well, the revelation isn’t in the bullet list. It’s the fact 20 percent — or 1 in 4 — marketers and sales professionals among us are content skeptics.
If you count yourself among this group, or if you work in an organization where content skepticism is blocking long overdue investments in technology, tools, training and people (read: pretty much everything) –here are 10 statistics to convert even the most hardened content skeptics into full-fledged believers:
- More than 66 percent of the buyer’s journey is complete before customers seriously engage a sales rep. (Source: Forrester)
- On average customers engage with 11.4 pieces of content prior to making a purchase. (Source: Forrester)
- 51 percent of B2B customers rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. (Source: DemandGen)
- 80 percent of business decision-makers prefer to get vendor information through content than advertising. (Source: Content Marketing Institute)
- 68 percent of customers spend time reading content from a brand that they’re interested in. (Source: Content Marketing Association)
- 95 percent of B2B buyers consider vendor-related content as trustworthy. (Source: DemandGen)
- Customers accessing content-led websites account for 20 percent of time spent surfing the internet. (Source: Content Marketing Association)
- Content marketing costs 62 percent less than outbound marketing, yet generates 300 percent more leads. (Source: Demand Metric)
- 74 percent of companies say that content marketing increases their lead quality and quantity. (Source: Curata)
- Year-over-year unique site traffic growth for content marketing leaders is nearly 800 percent higher. (Source: Aberdeen)
But wait, there’s more.
The above should be more than enough to win over even the most cynical of content skeptics. However, if you’re not yet firmly convinced — or if you feel that some people in your organization might need a little more nudging over the content fence — here are two bonus statistics that should seal the deal.
First, for those who think that customers with mobile devices aren’t interested in content because they’re on-the-go or have small screens:
- More people spend time reading content on mobile devices (51 percent) than on desktops (42 percent). (Source: SmartInsights)
And for those who think that content fatigue is going to set in, and customers will go back to speaking with sales reps early and often:
- By the year 2020, customers will manage 85 percent of the buyer’s journey without interacting with a single human being. (Source: Gartner)
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Resources to Improve Your Content
So yes, content is essential. But not all of it is created equal, or even worthy of the term. Frankly, a lot of stuff out there ranks between forgettable and dreadful. If your content strategy and execution needs some calibration or refinement (or maybe an overhaul or re-invention), then here are some resources to point in the right direction:
