Content Marketing & Thought Leadership Research
How Can Content Marketing Research Help?
‘Active thought leaders in their category / sector’ is the 3rd most important decision-driver for B2B buyers in 2024 (Source: 2024 Superpowers Index). Yet only 26% of B2B buyers are giving brands high marks for their thought leadership. Brand has never mattered more in B2B and creating valuable content that customers love can give your brand a real competitive edge.
Showcase Expertise and Build Trust
Stand Out in a Crowded Market
Stay on the Pulse of Emerging Trends
Trusted Research Partner for Top Brands
Video: What is Thought Leadership Research?
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Why Partner with B2B International for Content Marketing Research?
A Project as Unique as Your Business
Trusted B2B Data Quality
Action-Orientated & Outcome-Focused
Speak to One of Our Thought Leadership Research Experts
Want to discuss how content marketing and thought leadership research could benefit your business? Get in touch to schedule an introductory call with one of our team.
Contact UsFind Your Content ‘Sweet Spot’
Our content marketing and thought leadership research will help your brand create compelling marketing content that aligns with customer needs and consumption habits, addresses hot and emerging trends and topics, and aligns with business objectives at each stage of the customer journey.
Insights and Stories Ready for Sharing
Our experienced insights team will identify the key stories in the data and share these findings via a comprehensive PPT report complete with tables and charts, alongside an easy-to-digest summary of the key headlines, ready to be passed to your content team to form your thought leadership content.
If requested, our team can also turn the insights and key stories into a piece of written content, visualized with the help of our in-house creative team, ready to be published on your website or in industry press.
Examples of Our Thought Leadership Research
Creating Insights-Driven Thought Leadership Content for Stripe
Business Challenge
Despite the EU’s vision of a Digital Single Market, many regulations and taxes still vary by country, causing major hurdles for online businesses transacting across Europe.
We were approached by Stripe, a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, to conduct thought leadership research exploring how regulatory complexities are impacting international business growth; what regulations should be harmonized across the EU; and how technology can play a vital role in reducing the complexities involved in abiding by and managing this.
Our client also asked us to:
- Assess company growth, including expansion and retraction plans into different markets
- Identify regulatory barriers, including where resources are focused and the opportunity cost of this
- Understand business confidence and the support businesses require
- Analyze interest in online technology tools to help with regulatory compliance and overcoming challenges related to this
What We Did
Market research was required to identify challenges and pain points faced by online businesses across Europe and how piecemeal regulations in different EU markets have made trade and investment more challenging.
Our fieldwork team interviewed managers and executives in 9 European markets: UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and Republic of Ireland. All businesses operated predominantly online and transacted with at least one other country outside of their home market. In total we conducted 500 telephone and online interviews throughout the COVID-19 pandemic with businesses of all sizes operating across Europe including 50 interviews to deep-dive into the UK FinTech industry, a heavily regulated industry sector which typically devotes a great deal of resource into regulatory and tax complexities.
The research provided our client with valuable thought leadership material. Furthermore, it identified how technology could play a vital role in growing the EU digital economy through greater collaboration with policymakers.
We provided our client with an in-depth findings report using advanced analytics, frameworks and verbatim comments to inform and illustrate the main story, as well as creating a 10-page whitepaper for them to use in future marketing communications and PR campaigns.
Positioning Haufe-Lexware as Thought Leaders in the Tax Consultation Industry in Germany
Business Challenge
Our client, Haufe-Lexware, is a leading taxation solution provider within the tax consulting industry in Germany.
The leadership team believe that sharing powerful knowledge with their clients and the wider industry is equally important as supplying them with efficient digital tools for work.
Germany is currently facing a shortage of qualified workers and there is a new emerging threat that the tax consultancy industry will face problems in the future finding skilled employees. As a result, Haufe-Lexware decided to equip the industry with knowledge on how to attract a young, skilled workforce.
To ensure they were perceived as thought leaders, they needed to better understand the attitudes and behaviors of their potential future employees.
What We Did
They reached out to B2B International to conduct a research study to understand these attitudes and behaviors, particularly of Generation Zs with a focus on students, future high school graduates and young professionals.
We therefore designed an online study to discover the following (but not limited to):
- How is the tax consultation sector perceived as a work field area by Generation Z?
- What criteria and aspects are considered when deciding on their future profession?
- What does Generation Z expect from the sector and their future employers?
Some of the insights generated from the survey were surprising. These included that only 18% of the targeted audience would consider tax consultancy when looking for work in the future, and it is even lower among female respondents. Some insights, however, confirmed pre-existing assumptions that the image of the sector is still not favorable, and that the benefits of working within this industry are not being communicated with the future workforce.
The main findings were presented by Haufe-Lexware on the 45.Steuerberatertag (45th tax consultant day) in Dresden. A flyer was also distributed to the audience with a highlights summary from the study.
We then collaborated with their team and created a detailed whitepaper with powerful content for those in the industry wanting to know how to entice their future workers, with actionable insights to take forward.
Complementary Solutions to Take Your Brand Further
Featured Insights on Content Marketing and Thought Leadership Research
Speak to One of Our Content Marketing Research Experts
Want to discuss how content marketing and thought leadership research could benefit your business? Get in touch to schedule an introductory call with one of our team.
Contact UsFurther Insights on B2B Marketing Strategy
B2B Thought Leadership: Why It’s Important & How to Do It Well
B2B Insights Podcast #66: How To Effectively Target B2B Buyers in 2024 & Beyond
4 Reasons to Use Thought Leadership Research to Inform Your Content Marketing Strategy
3 B2B Pricing Challenges and How to Overcome Them
B2B Insights Podcast #63: 2024 Superpowers Index: Deep-Dive Into the Latest Findings
