Piechart courtesy of MarketingProfs.com
Recently a comprehensive B2B content marketing survey was produced and released by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). MarketingProfs packs a lot of good info into their post, and the entire survey is available for download with free registration.
MarketingProfs and CMI received responses from over 1,400 companies for this survey. So the findings should be useful in understanding the growing popularity of content marketing.
Here are some data points highlighted in the post:
- On average, B2B content marketers are spending 33% of their marketing budgets on content marketing, up from 26% last year; also, 54% plan to increase content marketing spending next year.
- All content tactics are being used more frequently than they were last year, with the use of research reports, videos, and mobile content having increased the most.
- On average, B2B content marketers are using five social distribution channels; the most popular of those channels is LinkedIn, whereas Twitter had been the most popular the previous two years.
After reading the full report, two figures in particular caught my eye. The first was that 56 percent of responding companies were attempting to produce their content exclusively in-house, while 44 percent outsourced all or part of the process. In my experience, most companies need help producing effective content on a regular basis.
Since my agency supports many content marketing initiatives on behalf of clients, that view may seem self-serving. However, one of two scenarios usually occur when content marketing is taken in-house. Either this important function is handed to a marketing person who already has a very full plate of duties, or it’s given to a very junior staffer, because they’re young and “get social media.” Either way, it’s not a recipe for success.
The second stat that stuck me was that only 36 percent of content marketers feel their campaigns are effective. That’s a surprisingly low number, especially since the study reports that the two leading ROI indicators for content marketing are traffic growth and lead quality. What may be missing is integration into the sales automation processes of the company, which is where we’re taking many of our clients.
That’s all I should probably share from the full report — if you’d like more go ahead and register. MarketingProfs has been a go-to resource for many years, and chances are good you’ll find tips you can use to improve your marketing efforts.