Does Your B2B Content Target an Active Audience?

June 1, 2020

This article is included in these additional categories:

B2B | Content Marketing | Cross-Media & Traditional | Customer-Centric | Featured | Industries | Lead Generation & Management

NetLine C Level B2B Content Consumption by Hour Jun2020For marketers who want their content to cut through the noise, the familiar ‘Tuesday at 10’ slot is indeed the best time to reach the C-suite, according to a new report [download page] from NetLine. Using content consumption activity data, the study indicates the top job levels, industries and subjects that B2B marketers should focus on for a targeted content marketing strategy.

Based on the consumption behavior of professionals across the NetLine platform, the report uses first-party data from real engagement with the 16 petabytes of content delivered by the platform in 2019.

Consumption activity varies by day as well as by hour. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were found to be the most active consumption days of the week, making up about half of the days where users requested information, particularly those in finance, IT and human resources. Moreover, content directed at the US C-suite is most likely to get through at 10 AM (EST). The largest share (11.4%) of C-level professionals’ activity was at this time, followed by 12 PM (11.1%), 9 AM (10.6%) and 1 PM (10.2%). 4 PM (9.2%) was the best afternoon slot.

Although C-level engagement rose by 2% year-over-year, the time it took for these execs to open content increased by 16% to 34.7 hours. This group wasn’t the slowest to consume, either – Contractors took an average of 44.2 hours to open content, and Consultants 39.2. Directors and Senior Managers were the most eager to open content (taking 22 hours and 22.9 hours, respectively) and both groups decreased their time to consume year-over-year.

Targeting Active Audiences

Differing activity rates across job levels indicate the importance of appealing to multiple personas within an organization, rather than just reaching for those at the top. For the fourth year running the most active job level was the Individual Contributor, followed by Managers and the C-suite, with Senior Employees and Directors in close competition for fourth place. A similarly broad range of job levels were found to be most active in last year’s report, reinforcing the need for content to appeal to the unique pain points of different audiences.

When evaluating target audiences by industry, marketers would do well to consider which industry professionals are more active in conducting research and seeking out content. Keeping in mind that NetLine’s data is specific to their platform and not necessarily representative of the broader market, its report found that Information Technology audiences made up 30% of all audience demand, with high tech IT specifically being most active. Following this were professionals in education, manufacturing, retail, and software IT.

In terms of content types, the study noted that – based on in-market segment data – users are most likely to engage with content surrounding employment tips, productivity software or career consulting services.

Read the full report here.

About the Data: Findings are based on an analysis of data collected from B2B buyers who agreed to share their information to receive content from NetLine’s clients or partners. The analysis covers all users who requested content using self-identified first-party data, and 4 million downloads globally.

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