Buyers Don’t Trust B2B Content Like Before

The 2019 B2B Buying Disconnect survey by TrustRadius found that “B2B buyers don’t believe vendors are the right source of information.“

Vendor produced content was at the bottom of the trust scale!

Even whitepapers and webinars that used to be seen as unbiased, educational B2B content in the past have been so shamelessly exploited that now they are second to last on the trust scale.

More companies are investing in creating B2B content than ever before. Yet, the ROI is becoming harder to extract. You need more time and much higher quality to influence buyer behavior than you needed 5 years ago.

Content works when buyers trust the brand to educate them on how to solve their business problems. But with mass use of content as a sales tactic, education has become promotion.

Buyer trust has eroded and it has become much harder to succeed with B2Bcontent.

You Are Not In B2B Content Creation Business

In this race to build more content, B2B companies have forgotten that they are not in the “content creation” business. They are in the “helping buyers solve their problems” business – using technology, services and information.

So instead of focusing on creating the next great piece to push a product, ask yourself – what are the problems are buyers are facing and do we know anything about solving them?

Companies have forgotten that they are not in the content creation business. They are in the ‘helping buyers solve their problems‘ business.

When you create content with the sole intent to “make the sale” or “close the deal” you are inherently biased – and buyers easily detect this. Buyers can see through the act.

It’s a classic case of Marketing Myopia infecting content strategy. Marketing Myopia is a nearsighted focus on selling products and services, rather than seeing the “big picture” of what consumers really want.

It has been destroying businesses for over half a century and it is more rampant than ever today. Read more about Marketing Myopia at HBR.org

“Companies have forgotten that they are not in the content creation business. They are in the ‘helping buyers solve their problems‘ business.”

Vaibhav Bansal

Top Marketers Know Real Value Of B2B Content

Companies that successfully use content to drive revenue have know this all along. Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) 2019 research shows that ‘90% of top-performing B2B content marketers put audience’s informational needs first.’

B2B buyers don’t just want more content. They want objective, clear, unbiased B2B content that serves their purpose. And their purchase trends reflect this behavior.

If you want to inspire trust with your customers, ask yourself 3 simple questions before publishing anything:

  1. Will people who have never heard of us really care about this?
  2. Does this B2B content really help our intended audience solve anything worth solving?
  3. When was the last time we (as a company) bought a product after reading a self-promoting article by a vendor?

“Buyers want objective, clear, unbiased B2B content that serves their purpose.”

Vaibhav Bansal

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