The new breed of B2B customer demands more. Marketers must push the boundaries and organise content strategies around the person, not the channel.

In an always-on environment, time is precious, attention spans are short and budgets need to work harder than ever. It is widely acknowledged that prospective customers are 60 per cent of the way into the buying cycle before they will even make contact. This makes the window of opportunity to start a conversation all the more challenging.

So, what can you do to keep prospects engaged?

1. Satisfy their Hunger for ‘Snackable’ Content

Some studies suggest the average adult attention span is 2.8 seconds. If they read content on an iPhone-sized screen, their comprehension levels drop 48% of their desktop scores.

With more and more time being spent on smaller, mobile screens, cutting down information into bite-sized chunks that can be easily grasped and quickly consumed will be increasingly important.

70 per cent of buyers claim they review four or more pieces of content prior to purchase. The whitepaper remains the most read piece of content, however 60 per cent of buyers say they don’t have time to read. In this instance, less is more.

2. Think About The Length of Your Tail

Another good reason for snackable content is it means you can invest in a 'long tail' of insights and content that keeps your target audience engaged over a longer period of time - with multiple opportunities for meetings, engagement and storytelling to convert them into sales and establish yourself as a thought leader.

3. Content is King, Relevancy is Queen

While B2B decisions are often made by multi-layered groups of people with complex interrelations, the ability to reach individual influencers and decision makers with tailored, relevant and campaignable content is an important factor in generating a competitive advantage.

4. A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

The trend for visual content is set to continue. The Rise of the Digital C-Suite report revealed 80 per cent of business leaders are watching more online videos than ever before and 65 per cent visit the vendor’s website after watching them. The power of imagery in marketing is supported by a study on the Picture Superiority Effect, which shows that when we read text alone, we are likely to remember only 10 per cent of the information three days later. If that information is presented to us as text combined with a relevant image, we are likely to remember 65 per cent of the information three days later.

There is no right answer when it comes to creating content but be it text, imagery or video, it is essential to pick and mix assets that can be activated across multiple platforms, acting as a magnet to pull prospective customers towards your brand.