B2B Content Consumption in COVID-19

The effects of the novel coronavirus are still very widespread worldwide. With the onset of expanded shores, the closure of brick-and-mortar stores, and a potential downturn, B2B marketers have become more determined to keep their heads above water. Coming up with a profitable content strategy has become more difficult as a content marketing organization now has very few options for research.

Unable to work out in the physical world we have shifted our focus to the internet — that is now attracting 24/7 online activity. This confusing spike in internet usage has left marketers in a small legacy as they tackle COVID-19 through content marketing.

Needless to say, it is a tough time for marketers to be able to understand how the market is changing in real time. To better understand it, we’ve compiled a more accurate, vendor-agnostic study of how content consumption has disrupted B2B’s space.

Packed with content ideas, insights, and consumer concrete data, this article aims to give marketers a clear view of the volatile market, to understand how to deliver great content, a test of potential content marketing effort led their online business into the new norm.

Let’s go inside.

Work from Home
Americans are spending more time online than ever before. As more of the world stays in, online activity has reached unprecedented levels and remote work is gaining momentum. Reports of work from home peaking on March 13 show some preparation for the impending closures.

We have become more reliant on solutions that allow us to learn and work from home. This dramatic shift, from working routinely from our offices to working from our homes, has also made a technological impact. 23.1% of the work from the home conversation takes place around WFH technology and related issues, falling mainly in these three areas:

The new technology needed to work remotely
The technology needed to communicate
Dangers of cybersecurity

More meetings are taking place on Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Microsoft Teams. Brands invest heavily to ensure that their processes and workflows are up-to-date so that collaborations can continue unnoticed from afar. Cybersecurity is an important part of this equation because employees need the right tools and solutions to stay productive while protecting the company’s confidential data.

Zoom has seen a huge increase in usage since it was locked out. It has also become a popular tool for social communication. As a result, the company recently had to address privacy and data security concerns when it came under investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office for its privacy and data security practices.

Web, Search, and SEO — What would your audience like best?
With events and conferences postponed, marketers seem to be focusing more on increasing the top of the marketing funnel to help retain their target audience and expansion efforts rather than pursuing new contracts. When asked about their budget shifts in terms of digital marketing efforts, this is what we saw:

According to a study conducted by Chief Marketer’s 2020 B2B Marketing Outlook, articles and blog posts (55%), reviews, and testimonials are the key elements of a content marketing strategy that has become more effective in shifting opportunities from the sales funnel. (43%), and white papers (38%).

A new report by Centerline Digital looks at how VPs and managers vs. C-level officials approach different content marketing strategies for decision making. C-level executives have shown that they spend 21% more time consuming content than managers, while VPs consume the fastest content — usually within 24 hours. The report also concludes infographics as the most preferred type of content, with 59% of senior executives preferring videos to text format. The s is called visual content.

Instead of focusing on brand awareness and increased promotion for your products and services, focus on building long-term relationships with your customers by identifying where you can help them.

How are sales and marketing teams reaching out to opportunities in this crisis?
The Major Marketer 2020 B2B Marketing Outlook Survey highlights that B2B marketers use email, search engine results, and content marketing to find leads with the highest ROI. However, the biggest challenges in generating leads are finding the person of the buyer, engaging with the target audience (57%), and finding those who turn (48%).

As companies embark on an email marketing campaign, email opening rates have risen in March. This shift from traditional marketing to date can be attributed to corporate communications delivering COVID-19-related messages and the metric is expected to shift over time.

The chart above shows that the average marketing email volume rose 29% in the week of March 16, while open rates jumped 53% that same week. Over the month, open rates rose by 21% overall. However, the sales team finds it difficult to establish a link with their sales content fund. Hubspot benchmark data shows that companies sent 23% more sales emails with great content each week starting the week of March 16th.

Response rates for these emails began to fall from the first week of March, with an overall decline of 27% from February. Data shows that chat volumes have increased steadily over the last two months; experts believe that this number will increase.

Conversation marketing can help a potential buyer and sales engage in real time as it also refreshes the key management process. This is the time for you to move in and respond to customer queries, so that your business gets service from a potential customer and existing customers even while you are working. at a distance.

Another content marketing strategy that a content marketer should invest in is also chatbots to respond to customers faster, automate testimonial certification or automate book meetings, and meet the growing demand. growing for consumer questions.

Some of the top industry research trends that rank the charts include e-commerce (toilet paper near me, hand sanitizer near me, cosmetics near me, thermometers and hygiene scrubs) , health and wellness information (coronavirus symptoms, home remedies, hand washing techniques, antibacterial essential oils, antiviral foods, antiviral herbs), and news media.

Food and recipe websites have also seen a spike of 22%, and travel-related searches have dropped 46%. Useful SEO / SEM Tips for Marketers:

Regularly monitor your analytics data
Stay at the top of Google Trends with great content creation
Reduce paid check and gear up for daily management
Increase your email reach
Follow down the path of SEO and content marketing
Do not promote sales or contracts for coronavirus
Help and support your community
Start thinking about Q4 campaigns from now on
Focus on customer support and consolidation rather than build, depending on your business

Social Media — Should Brands Look Forward Now?
In addition to emails, social media has seen a dramatic increase in communication as the pandemic continues to grow. With LinkedIn being the top tier for B2B content communication to date, Facebook also saw a 70% increase in usage of all its apps for the month of March. Both of these platforms have been the winners of the ever-growing content.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn revealed more involvement as people became more deeply involved. According to LinkedIn, COVID-19 did not affect employer branding until late February and early March. The platform has seen at least 1 in 4 companies mention COVID-19 in its posts. The data shows how COVID-19-related jobs progressed within a few weeks.

By mid-March, he had already taken control of the top stories and brand posts had started to show the same thing. Prior to the week of March 2, COVID-19-related positions accounted for 4% of company positions on LinkedIn. Two weeks later they were 24% of all positions.

The data show that COVID-19-related jobs accounted for nearly 50% of the companies ’jobs in the legal industry followed by public administration. Health care, nonprofits, and public safety were among the other industries that made up the rest. At the same time, employees who were able to work from home had to make adjustments, affecting the companies’ messages. Marketers got to grips with the new situation by posting more about working remotely — showing that 15% of company posts had been on this topic from mid to late. March.

Twitter
The data show that COVID-19-related jobs accounted for nearly 50% of the companies ’jobs in the legal industry followed by public administration. Health care, nonprofits, and public safety were among the other industries that made up the rest. At the same time, employees who were able to work from home had to make adjustments, affecting the companies’ messages. Marketers got to grips with the new situation by posting more about working remotely — showing that 15% of company posts had been on this topic from mid to late. March.

There is a growing demand for more video content from consumers. With streaming channels like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney + leading the pack, people are spending time communicating with content about news, sports, and watching content creators.

It’s important that you understand the impact of your words, whether through a blog post or even just a tweet, especially around this time. What you say and how you say is important now more than ever. People on Twitter are interested in seeing brands take on support (45%), informative (44%), and positive tones (35%) on social media.

Digital advertising — to advertise or not to advertise?
An increase in media communications may not translate into increased advertising revenue. A slower economy has led to falling markets and supply chains, forcing advertisers to withdraw or stop advertising. So in the digital marketing industry, digital advertising spending forecasts have, therefore, gone down from $ 712.02 billion to $ 691.7 billion across all media types.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau clarifies that 1 in 4 media and brand buyers have canceled all advertising for the first half of 2020, while Facebook reported that 89% of subscribers did so. action advertising with their budget in response to the pandemic — say “45% say they have changed media type or mobile budget usage among media types”.

A March 2020 survey of internet users in 13 businesses found that nearly 4 in 10 U.S. respondents aged 16 to 64 agreed that ads should continue as normal, and a similar share (35%) was neutral, compared to 28% who disagreed. The global results were also similar to those in the US, at 37%, 36%, and 27%, respectively.

A large proportion (54%) of U.S. marketers have stated that travel-based digital ad content should not be near COVID-19-related content, and food and beverage or vehicle should not to be there. However, 55% of respondents agreed that health and medication advertisements were OK.

While consumers do not expect advertising brands to stop, brands need to rethink their strategy calendar and respond to changes appropriately. Appropriately planned pre-pandemic initiatives may no longer be seen as consumers are looking for information on how to deal with the crisis and how they can stay safe and should use other content marketing examples related to the virus.

Similarly, in another March 2020 survey on advertising trends, 77% of respondents said they wanted advertising to “talk about how the brand is helpful in new everyday life,” and 75% said that the advertisements should provide information about (the brand’s) efforts. to address the situation. “

It’s a time for empathetic employer branding
Whether it’s respecting healthcare workers, supporting local communities, or caring for staff, people-first messages are doing just as well. Logos that show empathy and unity in their messages see the majority of engagement and so on. As the audience becomes more connected to human touch, anything that needs to be done that reflects the conventional reality is liked and encouraged.

Some of the COVID-19-related posts that companies see more engagement with have often included keywords such as, “health”, “help”, “people”, “support”, “staff”, “social distance”, “health authorities”, “public health”, “take care”, and “health care workers”.

What will be the content marketing priorities for B2B marketers in 2020?
It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. However, this is what marketers will prioritize in their budgets for 2020 — with a strong focus on consumer behavior.

2020 will be the year to create and deliver more quality content based on sympathetic brand messages and reaching out to as many opportunities as possible.

What do you expect from brands at this time?
There has never been a more opportune time for marketers to listen to their customers. Make sure to align your messages with what your customers expect to hear from you in the midst of an emergency. Respect, support, and nurturing — be there for those who need you. Right now, it’s less about what you want to say, more about what your audience wants to hear and respond to. Let your marketing approach be human-to-person.