B2B content marketing for professional services: In-person versus digital contacts

• Published in: Industrial marketing management 2019-08, Vol.81, p.160-168
• Main Authors: Wang, Wei-Lin, Malthouse, Edward Carl, Calder, Bobby, Uzunoglu, Ebru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Content marketing; Engagement; Lead generation; Services marketing
• ISSN: 0019-8501; 1873-2062
• DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2017.11.006

We study whether marketing can have a new role, one that is better aligned with the sales force, by adapting content marketing (CM) in B2B professional services organizations. CM activities can be in-person events such as conferences, which involve personal contacts with clients, or digital, such as webinars (i.e., digital events) or posting firm-generated content on branded websites (i.e., digital content). Fitting random-effects negative binomial regression models with four years of panel data from a large, international, consulting service provider, we show that the number of sales leads and won opportunities from its key accounts are positively affected by the frequency of an account's employees attending digital events and consuming digital content, but not in-person events. Moreover, we find that CM affects sales leads for both low- and high-level account employees. These findings suggest that CM can be effective in bringing sales leads and won opportunities to B2B professional service providers and can play a complementary role to the existing sales force. •B2B content marketing for professional service providers is discussed.•Engagement with content marketing activities positively affects lead generation.•Only engagements with digital events or digital content have positive effects.•Job titles of employees who engage with digital events moderate the main effect.