B2B journalists need useful, useable content – about time we listened and responded
There is a lot of talk about ‘creative content’ – but what journalists have overwhelmingly told us in our survey is that they want useful and useable content. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that our survey went into this area in great detail. In fact, respondents were asked to comment, rate or rant about 13 different content preferences, from style to source, and from frequency to format.
The full breakdown of this is available on request, but here we share some of the more teasing and learned results helping to inform us as to what B2B journalists want in terms of content.
Source of content:
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = not important and 10 = very important) more than 100 respondents rated the following sources of content as important in informing them and leading to published articles:
Press Releases; other publications, major events, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and editorial direction
Press Releases and major events still top the list with an average rating of 7 out of 10, followed closely by editorial direction. This indicates the importance of building a PR strategy that still relies on well written content in the form of Press Releases but also that is aligned with major events such as trade shows and clearly fits within the editorial calendar of your priority publications. As what regards social media, the results speak for themselves. Based on this, we recommend to use LinkedIn as a back-up to your traditional communications and PRs, repeating your main message. As for Twitter and Facebook, these channels are clearly less important and should not be part of your priority social media communication channels.
An ideal Press Release?
Given that 93% of respondents scored Press Releases between 5 and 10 in importance (and 44% rating them between 8 and 10), its clear to say that the familiar form for announcing industry innovations is still King. In our survey we also sought to understand what is an ideal Press Release. Its clear that brief is best and some form of short cover mail or brief PR with attached images is what our B2B journalists need.
Our full survey gives some more details behind other elements of content, such as importance of a commercial/advertising relationship, interviews with experts and value of by-lined articles to name but a few. But for now, we hope this offers some interesting food for thought till the next sneak preview, ‘Press Conferences’.
For more details and results from this survey, request a copy to: contact@NoBorders.eu.com
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