New Data Report from Business.com Focuses on Content Marketing as a Platform

CARLSBAD, Calif., Sept. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Studies show that 75 to 90 percent of the buying journey is completed before a B2B buyer ever speaks with a sales rep and more than half of those buyers are seeking and engaging with content before they make a purchase decision. Business.com's latest data report takes a deep dive into these B2B purchasing trends and couples them with millions of data points collected from its own audience insights. The result is an in-depth look at how companies and marketers are approaching content today, across all forms of content and the myriad of delivery mechanisms.

"Content marketing is quickly becoming the dominant platform for the marketing of business products and services," says Betsy Scuteri, Editor in Chief at Business.com. "The first party data we're capturing on out proprietary content platform allows us to share the insights we're learning with the marketing community, as they wrestle with how best to harness the power of content marketing." 

Key elements of the report include:

• Content marketing has quickly emerged as an essential lead generation channel.  Over 50% of companies are interested in white paper leads and nearly 40% are interested in hosted webinars that feature their company or product.
• As many as 41% of buyers said they waited longer to initiate contact with B2B vendors than they did a year ago, and at least 33% of buyers said their purchasing process took longer than it did a year ago.
• 90% of unique visitors to your site will consume content or provide you with personal information, but not convert during the visit.
• B2B small business marketers reportedly use an average of 12 content marketing tactics.
• 3 out of 4 people are willing to provide more detailed business card information to access a white paper versus an infographic or video.
• Buyers spend just 21% of the buying cycle conversing with salespeople, 23% of the time conversing with peers and colleagues, and 56% of the buying cycle searching for and engaging with content.

Download the full report and findings here: http://www.business.com/resources/content-marketing-through-the-eyes-of-the-business-buyer/

For more information on how we connect marketers with business buyers during the discovery and comparison stages, visit our ad center or contact our business solutions team at [email protected].

About Business.com
Business.com Media, Inc. helps over 30 million executives in growing businesses each year acquire the knowledge, products and services they need to run and grow their business. Its suite of performance marketing products enable contextual advertising at every stage of the buyers journey driving over half a million purchases for its 10,000+ advertising customers.

Business.com is a JMI Equity portfolio company and based in Carlsbad, California. Visit us at www.business.com.

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SOURCE Business.com Media, Inc.