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content strategy

By Susan Rose, Senior Director of Insights & Content

Now that we’re in Q1, content strategies are a big component of planning out the work my team is doing. I noticed that one of the key pieces of a content strategy that I don’t typically see in the plan is how long the various pieces of content will last. Considering how much work we need our content to do for us, this seems important.

Let’s be real: marketing content, in general, is not breaking news. There may be news events that logically tie into the content, but the meat of the content itself typically lasts longer than a few days.

How much longer? That’s the question.

In fact, it’s a question we asked in the Content Marketing Review. The study reaches decision makers across the public sector, and these questions focused specifically on content they rely on during the buying phase of the journey.

The shelf life of public sector content.

We asked respondents how long they use different content types: more or less than six months. Overall, written content types that provide unbiased information are most likely to have a shelf life over six months—case studies, eBooks, white papers, and research reports.

This is good news for those who have incorporated case studies, eBooks, white papers, and research reports into the content plan as they tend to require a larger investment in both time and budget. We’ve seen clients use these pieces for a year or longer. In fact, we use data from our own marketing research studies on average for two years (not all data stays relevant that long, but some does).

Videos, podcast, blogs, and webinars are also an important part of the content mix, although they have a shorter shelf life overall. Even still, there are plenty of people who hang onto that content for some time.

What content should you invest in?

Knowing that the content will be useful for some time, which pieces are best to invest in? Engagement is a key indicator of value, so we asked how much time respondents spent with each content type during the buying process in the previous year.

For all audiences, research reports, webinars, and case studies are the top content during the buying process. Podcasts, eBooks, and blogs are the least used. This doesn’t mean they aren’t important, just that they won’t factor as much into the buying process.

What this means for your content strategy

This data drives home the point that different types of content are best at different stages of the buyer’s journey.

Building awareness? A great blog or webinar will start establishing trust in the brand.

Making the case for a sale? Bring in the research and case studies—the buyers need examples and data to make decisions.

If you need more data on what buyer’s want during their buyer journey, check out our Federal IT Buyer’s Journey study. While it focuses on federal IT, the information is useful across the public sector.