If you are just producing blogs, articles, white papers and ebooks then you aren’t paying attention to how your buyers are consuming content. At least according to stats I’ve been reading lately and connecting the dots. People have less time to read, and they admit they are skimming blogs and articles on your website. 73% of respondents to Demand Gen Report’s 2019 Content Preferences Survey say they have less time now to devote to reading content. So are blogs, articles and white papers dead? – no but they are dying a slow death.

And at the same time, weekly listeners of podcasts listen to 6 hours and 37 minutes – that’s a lot of “ear” time.

Voice including podcasting is the future of so much today. ABI Research has predicted that about 128 million homes will be converted into voice activated homes by the end of this year. And 50% of all searches will be voice searches by the end of 2020 and the number of active podcasts has increased more than 27% since 2018.

So what are the stats about B2B buyers saying about all this?

B2B Buyers:

  • Prefer testimonials and what better way to provide them than interview-style podcasts featuring prospects, customers, partners and industry influencers telling your story for you.
  • Will listen when and where they want to. Did you know 44% of decision makers on LinkedIn listen to podcasts and 80% of podcast listeners listen to the entire podcast?
  • Describe podcasts as a content format that they value in the early stages of the buying process.

Many leading B2B companies like Cisco, IBC, SAP, Hubspot and Salesforce leverage podcasting. They obviously see the power in creating thought leadership content, brand recognition and helping sales.

Here are just a few of the advantages of B2B podcasting: It will:

  1. Establish your company as a thought leader in your industry.
  2. Help generate more leads.
  3. Directly and indirectly drive more traffic to your website.
  4. Help save you time on content creation (1 podcast = tons of content).
  5. Help increase your ranking on search engines (remember Google transcribes your podcast and podcasts are now a part of their algorithm).

Do I really think blogs, article, white papers and e-books are dead? – of course not. But I do believe in the power of podcasting as content tool for B2B marketers.