A lot of time and money is spent on studying and explaining consumer behavior and the psychology of marketing. But the thing is, marketers are consumers too – we all make purchases and we can learn a lot just by looking at our own behavior during our own buying cycles! Luckily, Column Five Media and NewsCred have teamed up to survey over 400 marketers from Fortune 1000 companies in order to highlight the gap between marketers’ buying practices and their marketing practices, and then created this incredible animated infographic. Let’s check it out.
Marketers are consumers too.
- Marketers tend to look for user-generated content – 64% of them will look for non-branded user review websites before making a purchase.
- Marketers research their purchases – 97% will sink over an hour into their research before pulling the trigger on a major purchase, with 51% of them devoting more than 4 hours to the task.
- When it comes to the content that resonates most, 70% of marketers point to user reviews as the biggest influence on their purchase decision, with only 13% saying that product demos were the deciding factor.
But marketers will be marketers.
- 45% of Fortune 1000 marketers still tend to spend most of their budget on traditional advertising, even though they themselves look for unbranded, unbiased content when doing their own shopping. Only 27% focus predominantly on content marketing, but this number is expected to grow.
- This focus on traditional marketing continues even though 54% of marketers say that email marketing delivers the highest ROI, 21% point to search engine marketing as their highest ROI, and 14% swear by content marketing. Only 5% say that traditional advertising delivers the highest ROI.
What do these insights mean?
- Content marketers should craft high-quality content that sounds more like unbiased information than a sales pitch.
- Offering a user review section on the brand’s website or prominently featuring reviews that provide value to consumers will help them to feel better about their purchase decision.
- With the majority of marketers agreeing that traditional advertising isn’t quite worth the money being spent on it, it makes sense to change the way that we budget for marketing. Brands should be investing in the same things that their marketers look for during their own buying cycle – high-quality blog content, case studies content, and consumer engagement.
Does your company’s marketing approach match up with your own buying behaviours? What improvements do you suggest to B2B content marketing campaigns?
