This week, in Episode 277 of the B2B Growth Podcast host James Carbary interviewed David Fortino, SVP of Audience and Product at NetLine Corporation. The interview focused on examining the buying committee of today and setting new expectations on C-suite engagement.

Fortino shared important insights from a recent content consumption report by NetLine Corporation with key takeaways to aid all B2B marketers in their demand generation journey:

“The buying committee as whole today versus even ten years ago is dramatically different. The vast majority of content that is being consumed is being done at lower levels within companies – and so our data is supporting all of those statements, in the sense that directors, managers, and individual contributors are now accounting for 64% of all content being consumed. That’s a gross disparity against C-level professionals which are basically consuming around 5% of content.”

Fortino continued to hypothesize why we’re seeing this evolution and what it means for B2B marketers:

“…perhaps C-suite professionals are simply too busy, perhaps they don’t necessarily care about going through this process, perhaps they have concluded that empowering their staff of talented people who are influencing that purchase decision simply makes sense…There’s probably a mixture of all of those conclusions in reality. The one commonality that we’ve tried to stress with our clients is that the buying committee and influencers within the organization is larger than it’s ever been.”

The key takeaway, summarized by Fortino, for B2B marketers is setting expectations:

“You need to be cognizant of who you are trying to reach within the organization, and you really need to set internal expectations that C-level professionals are not going to be these people out there actively consuming content and researching business challenges at any great length.”

In addition to the growth of the buying committee, Carbary and Fortino discussed the strategy for producing and packaging the right types of content for your target audience. Fortino described the trends found in the types of content consumed by professionals and how they differ by job level.

Listen to the full podcast now to get the insights for your 2017 demand generation campaigns, in episode 277, Do You Know the Type of Content Your Buyer is Consuming?