Some 85% of marketers say thought leadership content underdelivers, despite decision-makers claiming it significantly influenced their organisation.
Most decision-makers agree that thought leadership content is poor in its current state. Only 15% of marketers surveyed rated current thought leadership content to be ‘excellent or very good’ in quality. The reason why thought leadership content was rated so poorly was due to brands failing to connect their thought leadership efforts to a measurable business impact.
However, decision-makers did rate thought leadership as important to their business. About half of decision makers reported they spend about an hour or more every week reading thought leadership content from other companies. Some 89% of those surveyed also believed that thought leadership is effective in enhancing perception of their organisation.
The survey included 3,275 business decision-makers in Australia, France, Germany, India, Singapore, the UK and the US. The study was conducted in collaboration with LinkedIn and PR and marketing firm Edelman.
Joe Kingsbury, US managing director at Edelman, said: “After three years, our survey has undeniably established how much B2B decision-makers respect and count on thought leadership content to inform buying decisions. What continues to surprise, however, is how poorly the vast majority of executives rate the quality of content they’re seeing from brands.”
