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Are you wondering if content marketing can help your business?
If so, look no further.
In this article, I examine a recent study involving 1,416 B2B marketers from North America from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.
You'll discover how B2B marketers were leveraging content marketing in 2012 and where their focus will be next year.
#1: Producing Enough Content Is Top Challenge
In years past, the biggest challenge for content marketers has been creating engaging content. But this trend changed in 2012 with 64% of marketers saying that producing enough content was their number-one challenge.
It is quite conceivable that this challenge will help to create more business and employment opportunities for content developers. In a related conversation, Nate Riggs, director of social business at the Karcher Group, put it this way:
“This is great news for displaced journalists and (content) producers looking to reinvent.”
Key Takeaway: If your plan is to produce more content next year, think of ways to recycle what you already have.
- Spread existing content across different formats; for example, create an FAQ for quick tips or turn popular blog posts into a podcast, infographic or ebook.
- Curate awesome customer letters, testimonials and positive feedback into a relevant, real-world information packet about “Why customers love our brand.”
- Go back and see what was popular once-upon-a-time that is now buried in your online archives. Focus on evergreen content and republish as posts that speak to current problems in your industry.
#2: Marketers Using Average of 12 Content Marketing Tactics
The study revealed that large organizations (with 10,000+ employees) used 18 content marketing tactics on average, while small companies used 11. Companies of all sizes used an average of 12 content marketing tactics.
While it's clear that resources dictate the number of content marketing tactics employed, it's a good idea for you to evaluate your budget and figure out how many tactics you can commit to next year. Keep in mind that the more tactics you use, the greater your chances of amplifying your voice and extending audience reach.
Key Takeaway: As you brainstorm your content delivery strategy, become a “real publisher” and try to move away from web-only tactics. Figure out how you can distribute content through various devices and platforms including print. For example, use printed white papers – and yes, even books – as free giveaways after client meetings, workshops or conferences.
#3: Social Media – Most Popular Promotion Tactic
The study revealed that 87% of marketers used social media to distribute content – more than they used articles, email newsletters, blogs and other tactics.
This makes sense because their audiences (existing and potential customers) typically use social media for personal reasons – a typical case of “fishing where the fish are.”
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Key Takeaway: As you think about the most effective tactic(s) to use for your content distribution, think about where your audience hangs out and focus on those social channels. If Facebook and Pinterest are major distribution channels for your brand, remember too that images are eye candy and the time to sharpen your image-based content campaigns is now.
#4: LinkedIn – Most Popular Social Media Channel
This was a surprising find. It turns out that LinkedIn was the most popular social media channel for content distribution. More marketers (83%) are using it compared to Twitter (80%), Facebook (80%) and YouTube (61%). Even if the difference in usage between Twitter and LinkedIn is very slim, it still says a lot about a platform that is not considered as sexy as the others.
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Key Takeaway: Marketers should learn how to leverage LinkedIn because key decision-makers are more likely to hang out there than on other platforms. One of the best ways to do this is to become more active on LinkedIn groups.
Find discussions that you can contribute to by adding something helpful and valuable. Then once in a while, modestly mention in an “oh-and-by-the-way” fashion that your business solves this or that problem and attach some relevant content to back it up.
#5: Brand Awareness – Top Content Marketing Goal
Another surprise was that increased website traffic was not the top goal for B2B content marketers. The study found that brand awareness was the number-one priority for 79% of content marketers, followed by customer acquisition (74%) and lead generation (71%).
Nevertheless, website traffic was found to be the most important measure for content marketing success. This presents an interesting juxtaposition, as content marketing success is typically linked to organizational goals. When it comes to brand awareness, website traffic was seen as the measure of success.
Key Takeaway: Businesses looking to increase brand awareness will benefit if they track specific website indicators such as number of unique visitors, page views, amount of traffic that's referred to their sites from search engines and even how much time visitors are spending on their site. Google Analytics gives you lot of data to analyze trends and new insights on your website.
#6: Most Content Made In-House
The study showed that 56% of companies are creating content in-house, while only 1% are relying exclusively on outsourced content. But there's a nice balance of 43% who are developing both in-house and outsourced content.
Key Takeaway: This trend reflects the reality that outsourcing vs. hiring decisions are tough when it comes to content marketing. Content marketing is something that has to be nurtured on a regular basis. If your organization has the resources to produce enough content in-house, then outsourcing may not be needed unless a particular skill set is lacking internally.
#7: Content Marketing Budgets to Increase in 2013
More than half of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budgets for 2013.
While the report was not specific about in what areas of content marketing budgets would increase, we learned that currently, the average amount of budget spent on content marketing is 33%, which is up from 26% in 2011. This is yet another indicator that the future of B2B content marketing is bright.
#8: Most and Least Effective B2B Content Marketers Compared
The study also found that the most effective B2B marketers spend a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing than the least effective B2B marketers.
Most effective content marketers also:
- Use more tactics
- Tailor content to specific customer profiles (or personas)
- Are far less challenged in terms of producing engaging content
- Are less challenged by lack of buy-in from top management
Key Takeaway: This is an eye-opener for those who are still on the fence about content marketing. Just as “practice makes perfect” says, we see here that the most successful marketers are those who invested the most resources on trying new tactics to produce compelling content.
Final Wrap-Up
The state of content marketing is bright and B2B marketers are looking forward to doing more with content in the coming year. Content budgets are also set to increase and B2B organizations will be using both in-house and external sources to increase content production.
Over to you. What are your content marketing plans for next year? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.
Images from iStockPhoto.
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