• by Ray Schultz , September 17, 2019

Email is the top content delivery channel in B2B. And almost all B2B marketers rate this activity as important.

But only 51.6% say their content is effective, and 40.1% feel it’s only somewhat effective, according to The New Marketing Standard, a new study by Uberflip and Heinz Marketing. 

One challenge is personalization — 50% simply don’t personalize their content — and 36% don’t have enough material to support their current marketing program. 

Moreover, 32% lack actionable data and insights to understand engagement levels or different content. And others admit that their content lacks variety and that it is hard to find, poorly organized and isn’t easily accessible.

Among the marketers surveyed, 42% see good results from suggesting additional activities that a lead can take once they land on their site. But 20% don’t make any suggestions, and another 38% do but feel they need to improve. 

Finally, some say their content is spread randomly across owned and third-party sites. Over 20% believe their site discourages high-volume content consumption. 

These challenges mirror the most desired improvement areas: 

• Improve our ability to personalize content (e.g., to our accounts, personas, buying stages, verticals, etc).
• Improve the level of actionable data/insights to know what content is being engaged with
• Improve our content hub to make it easier to navigate, access, and engage with
• Improve our content variety (e.g., formats, topics, etc)
• Improve how we own, manage and share our content on owned and third-party sites

• Greater insights and data into how leads/customers are engaging with our content 
• Greater content distribution and sharing capabilities
• Greater personalization capabilities 
• More intelligent content organization capabilities 
• The ability to centralize our entire content library into a singular hub. 

In general, 24% say  they can create digital content — but that it takes time. Another 12% report that they need help from their IT or operations team to do this, and 8% concede that they simply can’t do it, but would like to be able to. 

The most frequently used content channels are: 

1. Email 
2. Organic social posts 
3. Digital ads, PPC, retargeting 
4. SEO/Organic 
5. Events
6. Paid social posts 
7. Webinars
8. Direct mail
9. PR
10. Content syndicators
11. Affiliates/Partners

The best tactics for encouraging content consumption?

• Show related content based on topic 
• Over additional CTAs 
• Present a newsletter sign-up
• Show personalized content recommendations 
• Show generic content recommendations 
• Use a chatbot 

Uberflip and Heinz Marketing surveyed 283 B2B marketing leaders.