Before a B2B buyer reaches out to a sales rep or completes a form on your website, they spend seven hours consuming your content. Seven hours!
Not seven minutes. Not seven interactions. Seven whole hours getting to know you, your expertise, your solutions and your approach before you ever know they exist.
And if you don’t have that amount of content available for them to consume, they’ll find what they are looking for somewhere else (yes, your competitors’ content and solutions).
The seven hours of content consumption is part of a broader framework that comes from research conducted by Google and CEB (now part of Gartner). This framework provides an insight into how B2B prospects behave behind closed doors, well before they are on your radar.
If the seven hours statistic isn’t scary enough, here’s some more context. Those seven hours consuming content are spent across 11 interactions and four different locations or platforms (think LinkedIn, your website, YouTube, your blog etc.).
Everything you do, everywhere you do it, matters. It all adds up – LinkedIn posts, regular blogs, thought leadership pieces, case studies, e-books, videos, landing pages, website, emails.
Buyers are actively researching and self-educating, and they aren’t afraid to dive deep. They are hungry for information and will consume long and short form content alike, so you need to have plenty of both.
We’ve previously talked about this – 80% of buyers have picked a winner before they ever talk to a salesperson. So you need to be a trusted option for them as they research viable alternatives. And that's where the 7-11-4 framework comes in.
Trust doesn’t happen in one sitting or on one landing page. It’s accumulated over time, through repeated exposure to valuable and relevant content. Content that is everywhere – a multi-channel and consistent presence is critical.
Multiple touches and repeated exposure earn you credibility and trust. And that earns you a place on the mental shortlist that buyers create long before they ever speak to you.
Sure, it’s a big body of work to create. If you’ve been consistently publishing a healthy mix of content over the last few years, you’re well on your way to success. And of course, you’d be aware that this is a commitment for life – you need to keep producing quality content consistently.
If on the other hand you don’t have much content to speak of, the time to start building your foundation is now. If you don’t know where to start, or if you are worried you don’t have the capability or capacity to do it properly and consistently, that’s what we’re here for.