Marketing content has become the primary way for customer-facing teams to create dialogue as B2B buyer behavior changes and work-from-home limitations cause buyers to engage online to inform prospect and customer buying decisions. Static, one-to-many communications don’t cut it anymore — to win buyers’ increasingly divided attention, content must become more relevant, valuable, and interactive. 

Content engagement solutions are an emerging market category that helps B2B marketers create more engaged and effective buyer interactions digitally. Embedded in sales or marketing technology functionality — or delivered as a separate offering — these applications extend beyond conventional content storage and management solutions to create engaging experiences using a variety of content formats that feature:

  • Intuitive interfaces that let buyers browse content based on interests. 
  • Detailed tracking that helps marketers better understand customer needs. 
  • Interactive features that support a virtual conversation. 

While many solutions we reviewed are stand-alone or specialized offerings, account-based marketing platformscontent marketing platformsdigital experience platforms, or sales content solutions embedding content engagement capabilities attracted the lion’s share of venture capital investment during the first four months of 2021. We expect this emerging technology category to continue to expand, as marketers look to add content from virtual events, seller-produced video messages, and podcasts to experiences that better engage buyers. 

Today, the overall content engagement solution landscape consists of four functionality segments — embedded content solutions, content experience hubs, interactive content studios, or specialized customization tools — each with varying capabilities and support for different B2B marketing and sales scenarios.

Forrester clients should read the new report, New Tech: Content Engagement Solutions For B2B, Q3 2021, to understand how this market is emerging and to narrow down the best-fit solutions for your needs.