Not all content is created equally, nor are all types of content equally effective. Many B2B brands are spending a substantial amount of time and resources creating content that may not get the best results. In fact, some B2B brands seem to be chasing a lot of shiny objects within their digital marketing efforts and ignoring the facts about content marketing effectiveness.

Let’s start off by asking a few questions about the content that your brand is creating.

The Difficulty And Effectiveness Of Content Creation

Are you creating the most effective content, or are you creating more difficult content types, which are less effective?

What type of content would you think is the easiest for most brands to create?

What type of content do you think is most effective?

If you are able to easily answers these questions beyond your gut feeling, but instead based on data, you are in the minority. Though many brands are creating content with the intent to drive traffic to their website, generate leads and create customer engagement, many don’t truly understand which types of content are the most difficult to create and which content achieves the best results.

Different types of content come with differing levels of difficulty to create. Many B2B brand content creation is focused on a handful of distinct types of content, all with different skillset, time and resource requirements, as well as dramatically opposed measurements of success. For the most part, B2B brands are creating multiple types of content from videos, research papers, to blog posts and newsletters.

With these many different types of content comes varying resource requirements and difficulty levels that range from easy to create to expensive and challenging. In addition, the different content types also have general rules of effectiveness that vary from content type to content type. The most effective content isn’t always the most difficult to create, and this might surprise you.

Let’s cover the data surrounding the most difficult types of content to create and then reveal which type of content is the most effective.

Content Creation Is Difficult

76% of B2B brands have stated that they are creating more content than in previous years and half are putting more financial resources toward content creation with increased budgets. For many marketers, creating exceptional content that gets results is a challenging task that can be exceedingly difficult, requiring additional resources, talent and skills.

Brands have come to realize the extreme challenges associated with creating effective content. In fact, many B2B marketers are now outsourcing some of their work to professional content creation forms to help. In Ascend2’s recent survey, almost 75% of B2B brands are either outsourcing all of their content marketing, or are using a combination of outsourced and in-house content creation resources. The difficulties surrounding creating effective content are real.

But do you know what types of content are considered to be the most difficult to create?

What’s The Most Difficult Content To Create?

The Ascend2 research indicated that the most difficult content to create was Videos and Podcasts, and the easiest content to create was blog posts.

Here is how the various content types were ranked for content creation difficulty:

  • Videos and Podcasts
  • Research reports and white papers
  • Webinars
  • Infographics
  • News articles and press releases
  • Newsletters
  • Blog posts

This study further noted that lead generation, customer engagement, brand awareness and lead nurturing where the top four goals of B2B brand content marketing.

What Content Type Is Most Effective?

When you compare the difficulties, expense and resources surrounding the creation of certain content types against the inherent effectiveness of the content, there are some interesting surprises. Though research reports, such as whitepapers and case studies were considered to be one of the most difficult types of content to produce, it was also considered to be the most effective type of content for B2B brands. On the other hand, though blog content was determined to be one of the easiest types of content to create for brands, it was considered to be the second most effective type of content for B2B marketers.

Here is how the various content types were ranked for content Effectiveness:

  • Research reports and white papers
  • Blog posts
  • Videos and Podcasts
  • News articles and press releases
  • Infographics
  • Webinars
  • Newsletters

The most effective content is research driven content that speaks to audience needs, interests and challenges. Just because a certain content type is generally the most effective type of content for B2B content marketing, does not mean producing it will be effective for your brand. Quality content that actually gets results is a very different thing than just creating content without the experience and research required to make it effective. The level of effectiveness of content has as much to do with what is being created as it does with HOW it is being created.

So the most effective content for brands online is not just a list of content types, but also the quality of the content that is being created. Quality content can be extremely subjective if you don’t have the experience to truly understand your market, target customer and at the same time how content correlates with search, distribution, social media and conversion. This is why we are seeing such a high percentage of brands working with external agency and professional partners to lower the burden they have with content creation difficulties and leverage additional expertise and experience to garner the best results from their content marketing programs.