Articles Voted The Most Helpful Form Of Content

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A recent survey from the Economist Group and Peppercomm asked B2B marketing executives their opinion on the most helpful forms of content, Marketing Charts reports. The survey found that the overwhelming majority of those questioned found business-related articles to be the most helpful, with 71% of the respondents choosing it as part of their top three most helpful types of content.

The question posed to the professionals was: “In the past 12 months, which of the following forms of content have you found most helpful for a business-related matter?” and they were then asked to choose their top three. Following from articles came research reports or special reports, securing 51% of the votes, with white papers or briefing papers coming in third with 27%.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, social media content, such as that found on sites like LinkedIn, came fifth after newsletters – which secured 19% compared to 13%. Social media content found on Facebook and Twitter was below even this, with 7% – whereas social media content found on sites like YouTube and Vimeo had only 3%.

Surveys or polls, and infographics or data visualisations both received 12% of the votes; SlideShare presentations and blog posts both secured 11%; and webinars and e-books both held 10%. Among the lowest scoring forms of content in terms of their helpfulness were videos, webcasts and podcasts, PR campaigns and Google adwords campaigns. The lowest scoring form of content was embedded content and native advertising.

Another survey of B2B marketers, however, found that whilst research reports and white papers were classed as the second and third most helpful forms of content, they are not the second and third most widely used forms; this went to newsletters and social media posts.