1. As the content marketing landscape
becomes more crowded and
competitive, we take a deeper dive
into why and how research can set
your strategy apart
THIS WHITEPAPER COVERS:
The Economic Context
The world in which businesses operate
The Business Theory
How marketing and sales need to adapt
The Practice
How research fits into content marketing
Putting Research
at the heart
of Content
Marketing

2. his whitepaper demonstrates how the
economic landscape has evolved and
respectively the pressure that puts on sales
and marketing teams within enterprises. This is vital
to understand in order to create content that works
and has an impact. In our opinion, research is key to
unlocking a successful content marketing strategy in
today’s business environment. It allows brands to set
their offering apart and influence the target audience
in a new way which matches their knowledge
acquisition patterns. Following the practical steps
in this whitepaper will help drive improvement in
marketing strategy for 2016.

3. So what does the “Knowledge
Economy” looks like?
Knowledge is the key
resource, and knowledge
workers are the dominant
group in the workforce
It is borderless, because
knowledge travels even
more effortlessly than money
There is upward mobility,
available to everyone
through easily acquired
formal education
Success is not a given.
Anyone can acquire the
“means of production”
ie. The knowledge
required for the job, but
not everyone can win
Together, these characteristics
make the knowledge society
a highly competitive one, for
organisations and individuals
alike. Information technology,
although only one of many features
of the knowledge economy,
is already having one hugely
important effect: it is allowing
knowledge to spread instantly,
and makes it accessible
to everyone (more on this in
The Business Theory section).
This context puts demands on
businesses. Today, one of the most
important priorities for the senior
management of companies, as
well as the marketing department
specifically, is to balance the
conflicting demands on their
business by the corporation’s
various stakeholders (customers,
shareholders, knowledge
employees and communities) for
both short and long-term results.
This new world in which
business executives - notably
marketers - operate in has
some distinct challenges.
The
Economic
Context
THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
Peter Drucker coined
the term “Knowledge
Worker” in 1957; “the
most valuable asset of a
21st-century institution,
whether business or
non-business, will be its
knowledge workers and
their productivity,“ boldly
predicting the death of the
“Blue Collar Worker.” That
was quite some foresight.

4. The challenges
created by
The Economic
Context
This “knowledge economy”, and it’s respective
servisation sectors, have “increasing returns”.
Information is expensive to produce, but
cheap to reproduce. High fixed costs and negligible
variable costs give these industries vast potential
economies of scale that previously did not exist.
Software companies are a good case in point: the
larger the company the cheaper the production
costs (on a scale not seen before). This means many
sectors are now monopolized – comprising of a few
large holding companies. The by-product of this is
the “illusion of choice”, where many brands present
“choice” to buyers, but they live under conglomerate
and consolidated industry umbrella companies.
This makes the market hard to penetrate.
The value of “information goods”
increase the more popular they
are, for instance- the iPhone.
Beyond production costs, network
externalities ensure the value to the customer
is far higher due to this amplification
effect making that product or service more
valuable. Another example is Paypal; the more
commonplace Paypal is, the higher the trust
levels , the more practical it becomes and
respectively it increases in value which in turn
fuels further network externalities. Network
effects can thus create strong barriers to entry
and market bulwarks, making competition
stiff and marketing pivotal.
Once a
customer has
learnt how to
use or apply
a particular system of
knowledge, they are
reticent to change due
to the inconvenience
of un-learning and re-
learning. Users gain great
benefits from common
standards, so a newcomer
has to show a huge
advantage to persuade
customers to switch.
Problem 1
MONOPOLIES:
Problem 2
NETWORK
EXTERNALITIE:
Problem 3
THE LOCK-IN
EFFECT:
Economists have a problem
with knowledge because
it seems to defy the basic
economic law of scarcity.
If a physical object is sold,
the seller ceases to own it.
But when an idea is sold,
the seller still possesses
it and can sell it over and
over again. However much
knowledge is used, it does
not get used up.

5. CEB Global, a leading
advisory, shed light on
the matter with their
research. They claim
“B2B buyers are learning
on their own and
delaying their contact
with suppliers until
late in the purchase.
Most B2B marketers
are fighting back with
thought leadership—
but this simply won’t
work.” Customers are
already 57% through the
purchase process before
they even approach
your commercial teams.
This means you need
disruptive insights to
engage customers and
force them to think
differently.
Suppliers today account
for less than one-half
of all information that
buyers use to aid in their
purchase decisions.
The Business
Theory
Customers have
fundamentally changed
the way they buy, which
has forced an evolution
in how companies sell
and market.
As mentioned earlier
in The Economic
Context, the
knowledge economy
means that everyone
can learn on their own
terms, as fast as they
like. Given the ease
and speed at which
information travels,
every company has to
be globally competitive,
even though most
companies will
continue to be local
in their activities and
in their markets. This
is because the internet
keeps customers
everywhere informed
on what is available
anywhere in the world,
and at sometimes at
what price (though this
is often the last “piece
of the puzzle”). People
are now masters of
their own knowledge
consumption.
Due Diligence First Contact Purchase Decision
CUSTOMER PURCHASE DECISION TIME
57% COMPLETE
So what does this
mean for the theory
of best practice in
sales and marketing?

6. 1
Now that big, complex deals
increasingly require consensus
among a wide range of players
within this large monopolised
industries, the best marketing
approach unteaches customers
something they already know or
believe about the way their
business currently operates. This
means marketing and sales needs
to move from “thought-leadership”
(showing someone the benefits
of alternative action), through to
“commercial insight” (highlight the
cost of inaction). For the latter to
happen, research is crucial.
2
Traditionally, marketing
would create content/other
collateral to engage an
audience, then hand over the process
to sales, who would be responsible
for showing the benefits of the
proposition and closing the deal.
However, in the Knowledge Economy,
marketing needs to partner with sales
to develop commercial insight and
co-design demand generation and
content strategy that disrupts how
customers think of their own business.
Essentially, the brand un-teaches
prevalent thinking and replaces it
with their version of thinking.
The Business
Theory
continued
Insight
Thought
Leadership
Accepted
Information
General
information
Sales
Sales
Marketing
Marketing
Commercial
Insight
The Challenger methodology
as presented by CEB provides
us with 2 key insights which
are very important in the
context of the knowledge
economy.

7. e have covered the
economic context in
which businesses are
operating today, as well as the
respective theory applied to best
practice in marketing and sales—
both demonstrating how research
is fundamental to achieving
success. This section examines how
marketers can practically apply
these principles.
High quality independent
content influences prospects so that
they are open to considering new
solutions and methods in the face
of challenges and problems that the
content might raise. This influence
means readers (the prospects with
whom you seek to build
a relationship) trust what they
are reading.
In reality, most marketing
focuses on showcasing products or
solutions. It’s “salesy” and brand
focused. This doesn’t work in the
knowledge economy. Therefore
content needs to shift to being
“knowledge based”.
The knowledge society we
live in today is a world in which
intelligent people value and
prioritise knowledge they can’t
find elsewhere. This means that
the way prospects look for, rank
and rate information is shifting
rapidly. Proprietary research allows
you to impact your prospects in a
way that counts, because engaging
content is part of their knowledge
acquisition process. What that
means is that they have, of their
own volition, sought to read a piece
of content in order to better their
own understanding, or due to their
own interest — seeking knowledge.
Editorial, thought leadership or
blogging is not enough in isolation
to feed this knowledge thirst:
commercial insight and evidence
are fundamental.
The Practice

8. The Practice against
the challenges
From a content perspective, research
is fundamental in challenging
existing trust with monopolies.
Creating a heavy-hitting piece of
market research that changes the way
a business perceives its challenges
and opportunities can be the catalyst
for change. Research based content
can also position your brand as larger
and more credible in the market than
perhaps is true. Putting your brand
on the map and punching above your
“brand-equity weight” is vital in
building trust.
If the value of service or goods increases
with the number of people purchasing
them, then marketers must ensure
research produced is highlighting
future trends. If your content is
future focused, the audience’s fear of
change will be reduced. The research
underpinning your content should
predict or demonstrate how things will
change, and that you are a solution
to that change. This means that the
lack of peers (the sector, competitors
and institutions) purchasing these
information goods decreases in
importance. The research should also
point to those who have adopted change
and showcase winners and losers — the
more tangible the evidence, the better.
Inevitably, some people will purchase
out of habit. In a B2B world with complex
solutions this has vast repercussions.
Research based content marketing can
help this by educating the prospect/
audience throughout their buying
journey. If it is new clients you’re
seeking, ensure the research is casting
new light on the matter at hand in a
cutting edge way. If it is existing clients
you wish to keep “locked-in”, ensure the
research you produce reaffirms your
approach and beliefs in a credible and
independent fashion. More “salesy”
collateral can have a very damaging
effect on the latter when people are
thirsty for knowledge and learning.
MONOPOLIES NETWORK EXTERNALITIE THE LOCK-IN EFFECT
SOLUTION SOLUTION SOLUTION

9. Next
Steps
In order to achieve
success with research
based content
marketing, following
these tips is advisable:
1
Decide the outcome
and results you
want to see before
you begin. Measure all
actions and results
against this yardstick.
2
Conduct due
diligence
and audit the
market. If another brand
has created something
that is compelling on
the subject matter; what
were the faults? Where is
the editorial gap? What
is dull about the current
content on this topic?
3
Drive for
headline
statistics.
A common mistake
by marketers who
work closely with the
business is being lulled
into the false sense of
security of “absolutely
academic” research. If
your goal is marketing
- with a commercial
end game - do not try
to boil the ocean and
research everything
on the matter. Focus
in on driving headline
statistics to come up with
discrepancies which can
un-teach your audience.
4
Minimize the
stakeholders.
Though The
Business Theory
stipulates working
collaboratively with
sales, do not interpret
this as all the sales
stakeholders. Pick the
people that are essential
and outline where they
can and cannot influence
the research. Having
numerous voices and
iterations of research
methodologies can be fatal
in diluting research or
achieving the right results.
5
Be realistic. What is it you
want to achieve? Marketers
have been known to measure
the wrong thing, usually due to the
competing demands of internal
stakeholders, all of whom care
about different metrics and don’t
necessarily communicate. Outline
the things you wish to see as return
at the beginning of the research
e.g. “we want PR coverage” or “we
want our prospects to accept this line
of thinking”. Then, create
expectations linked to those specific
goals and ensure the research
structure and methodology directly
lends itself to both of those. For
instance, if PR is more important
than impressing clients, then
your research should probably be
politically engaged, news worthy
and highly contemporary (subject to
fast change). The research apparatus
set up to achieve this therefore needs
to facilitate this. Equally, a slow
burning qualitative piece around
supply chain risk probably wont get
that type ROI, but may serve cross-
selling existing clients very well.

10. For custom publishing enquiries,
please contact:
Elizabeth Smith
Head of Custom Publishing
es@raconteur.net
0208 616 7420
www.raconteur.net
@Raconteur