Study: Visionary better than anecdotal content

Chances are the content most businesses and sales staffs are using to engage customers....is having the opposite effect. That's the takeaway from a new Corporate Visions report which indicates anecdotal content - which is used by most firms - is less effective at engaging customers than more visionary content. Study: Visionary better than anecdotal content

by Kristina Knight

"What's surprising about the survey results is that the insights marketers and salespeople feel are the most effective are exactly the opposite of the insights they believe their companies produce," said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions. "Regardless of the category, however, the real power of an insight comes from using it in proper context - identifying relevant market data points and then interpreting that information to make it meaningful to the challenges prospects are facing. In order for companies to be truly successful, they must take these insights and turn them into provocative questions and a distinct point of view that breaks the status quo bias and differentiates their solution."

Researchers placed sales content into four categories: Anecdotal (in-house created content that focuses on lessons learned), Authoritative (content leveraging the work of experts), Current (content culled from original research) and Visionary (content leveraging in-house expertise and focused on the future).

Respondents to the survey ranked the effectiveness of these content areas and the results were:
• Most important/engaging - Visionary content/insights
• Current insights
• Authoritative insights
• Anecdotal insights

What is really interesting is that the same survey respondents ranked the content areas as to which were used the most often in their collateral materials and the list went Anecdotal, Authoritative, Current and Visionary.

Image via Shutterstock

Tags: branded content, Corporate Visions, sales and marketing, sales content