B2B Content Marketing a Core Part of Marketing Process

Content Marketing

October 1, 2013 -- The 4th annual content marketing study from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, and sponsored by Brightcove, a global provider of cloud content services, shows that B2B marketers are making content marketing a core part of their marketing process. More than nine out of 10 organizations (93%) now market with content - regardless of company size or industry. Last year that figure was 91%.
 
Highlights from the B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends - North America:
 

• B2B organizations are using an average of 13 tactics. The most popular tactics are social media (87%), articles on company's website (81%), eNewsletters (80%), blogs (76%) and in-person events (71%). B2B content marketers continue to rate in-person events as the most effective tactic.

• B2B marketers are using social media platforms to distribute content more frequently than they did last year; they now use an average of six platforms.

• The 5 most relied upon social media platforms used to distribute B2B content: LinkedIn (91%), Twitter (85%), Facebook (81%), YouTube (73%), and Google+ (55%).

• The social media platforms that have experienced the biggest gains in use, year over year, are SlideShare (40% vs. 23%), Google+ (55% vs. 39%), and Instagram (22% vs. 7%).

• For the fourth year in a row, in-person events rank as most effective (70%) followed by case studies (65%) and videos (63%.

Source: Content Marketing Institute/Marketing Profs 2013

• Brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition remain the top content marketing goals.

• On average, B2B marketers are spending 30% of the marketing budgets on content marketing.

• The top 3 challenges facing B2B content marketers: Lack of time (69%), producing enough content (55%), Producing the kind of content that engages (47%)

• More than four of 10 (42%) B2B marketers consider themselves effective at content marketing, up from 36% last year.

About: The fourth annual Content Marketing Survey was e-mailed to a sample of marketers using lists from Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs, Brightcove, Blackbaud, and more. A total of 4,397 recipients from around the globe—representing a full range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes—responded throughout July and August 2013. The North America section reports on the findings from 1,217 (out of the total 4,397) respondents who identified themselves as B2B marketers in North America.

Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends - North America, accessed October 18, 2013.