2015The Year in B2B

Copywriting

How blogging got serious; white papers rose from the dead and four more trends that shook our copywriting

world in 2015

Hello, we’re Radix Communications.

(Pleased to meet you.)

We write marketing content and communications for top B2B technology brands.

Like Dell, Fujitsu, Honeywell, Oracle, Sprint, Salesforce.com and Xerox.

We work with some of the UK’s top B2B agencies, as well as a number of tech brands directly.

In 2015, we wrote copy for 727 content projects, for over 50 tech brands.

This is our fourth year of diving into our data to quantify what it’s like on the front lines of B2B technology copywriting.

And guess what? We found a bunch of interesting trends.

But how did our experience compare with B2B content marketers in general?

We’ve delved into research from Content Marketing Institute and others to find out.

Business blogging gets seriousBlogs driven by quality, not quantity

Blogging, as a content tactic used by B2B

brands, saw a 5.26% increase in use between

2014 to 2015…1

1 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2015 and 2016 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, pages 19 and 15

Meanwhile, at Radix, we saw a 426.17% bump in demand for B2B blog

posts in 2015.

No, you did read that correctly:a 426.17% increase in requests for

blog posts.

Here’s how our work from 2015 stacked up against previous years

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

2015

2014

2013

2012

A huge leap for blog posts.

The rise in blog work could be down to:

1) Marketers not having time to blog on a weekly (or even more frequent) basis

2) Marketers not having time to do thein-depth research that a successful blog post now requires

3) Outsourcing blog work to a cheap,low-cost content service has failed to deliver an appropriate level of quality

Social media content remains on topBut native content now rules the roost

In 2015, out of all content tactics used in B2B marketing, social media content was the most popular. It was used by

93% of those surveyed by CMI and MarketingProfs.

It’s been the most widely used B2B content tactic for the past 4 years.2

2 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, pages 15, 19, 9 and 5 respectively

Social media content accounted for 23.52%

of Radix’s client work in 2015.

We’ve seen a steady shift towards content

designed to be consumed on social

platforms.

Regalix found that 94% of B2B brands

use social media to increase brand

awareness.

But that social media campaigns account for less than 25% of

website traffic for 90% of B2B brands.3

But what are brands using social media content to achieve?

3 Regalix: State of B2B Social Media Marketing 2015 , page 21

At Radix, we still write more social media content than anything else.

But in 2015 how B2B brands use social changed.There were more requests for social media native content that’s consumed on the social platforms it’s created for.

Like puzzles, graphics, image-led posts and teaser videos.

We’re also seeing clients make more use of LinkedIn’s Pulse blogging platform to get their content directly in front of their connections and their connections’ connections.

2016 could see brands considering whether social media is suitable for lead generation or if the focus shifts more to brand awareness.

White papers rise from the deadAs marketers realise they play a critical role in the funnel

In 2015, CMI and MarketingProf’s research shows that white papers

were used by 71% of brands, up 10.93% from

2014.4

4 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2015 and 2016 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, pages 19 and 15

57% of tech buyers among the

C-Suite, Finance, HR and Sales,

need more content now than

they did a year ago in order to

make purchasing decisions.4

But many have less time to look at this content.

Octopus Group points out that...

4 Octopus Group, Tech Heads – B2B Nation: The Content Pinch Point, page 5

Research by Octopus Group found that...

The best news is that B2B buyers are immersed in information gathering and they value content across the buying

process. Capturing attention, creating the right context and maintaining attention

over time are the foundations for content delivering a competitive edge.

Octopus Group, Tech Heads – B2B Nation: The Content Pinch Point, page 11

During 2015 we saw a 17.91% increase in

demand forwhite papers.

Every year since 2012, Radix has seen a steady increase in the volume of white paper work.

The death of the white paper has been predicted a few times, but their continued growth is an admission that white papers are actually still very useful and have a valuable role to play in the MOFU/BOFU stages of the funnel.

Vanishing video scriptsBut will 2016 be the year of B2B video?

The use of video by B2B brands only rose 3.9% over the past year, according to research from the Content

Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.5

In the past four years, video use in B2B content

marketing has risen by 12.85%.6

5 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2015 and 2016 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and

Trends—North America, pages 19 and 15

6 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks,

Budgets, and Trends—North America, pages 15, 19, 9 and 5 respectively

According to Jay Baer, of Convince and Convert, video is going to be big

in 2016...

All signs point to video. Whether it’s Facebook Live, video on Twitter, Periscope, Blab, Instagram, Vine or the old standby YouTube, 2016 will be the year when video becomes a

primary content and social marketing consideration for all brands – even B2B.

Jay Baer in: 13 Digital Marketing Experts Make Bold Predictions for 2016

Radix has seen a continued drop in

requests for video scripts over the last two years.

Including a 42% year-on-year drop

in video script requests in 2015.

Our experience does not bear this out.

We see no evidence of a B2B video bonanza.

Our clients simply don’t produce a lot of video content. That may be because it’s seen as expensive and risky.

We’ve seen requests for video scripts declining since 2013.

Video is expensive and difficult to get right. It not only requires deep subject matter knowledge, but also specialist skills in storyboarding, scripting and production. So we tend to see marketers producing just 1-2 “hero asset” videos per year, rather than spend a lot of their budget on video.

Infographics no longer hotThey’re just too hard to get right

Infographic use rose by 8.06% in 2015 to

become used by 67% of B2B marketers.

Illustrations and photos are a more popular tactic, used by

76% of respondents to Content Marketing Institute and

MarketingProfs research.7

7 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2015 and 2016 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, pages 19 and 15

But Radix saw requests for infographic copy

decrease by 38.64% in 2015 to just 4.54% of our

total workload.

Back in 2013, infographic copy

represented 15.43% of our client work.

We don’t know exactly what’s behind the decline in requests for infographics. But we feel that to create a really arresting infographic, a designer, writer and data analyst need to work very closely together. That’s not always possible when the writing work is outsourced.

And it’s not just us: Google Trends suggests that interest in infographics

has been declining since 2014.

The limitations of the format may also be restricting its use

as infographics are rarely mobile friendly. Octopus Group have found that 50% of tech buyers

among the C-Suite, Finance, HR and Sales now use mobile devices

for product research.8

8 Octopus Group, Tech Heads – B2B Nation: The Content Pinch Point, page 5

ebooks bounce backLate adopters enter the fray

Over the last four 4 years ebooks

have continued to rise in use.

In 2015, CMI and MarketingProf’s research shows that ebooks were used by 39% of brands, up 5.40% from 2014.9

9 Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, pages 15, 19, 9 and 5 respectively

During 2015 Radix saw demand for ebook copy rise

by 55%.

This is a slight resurgence in ebooks, after a steep decline last year.

It’s possible this is due to a rash of “late adopters”, people who have come late to the ebook trend.

The advantage of using ebooks is that it does add variety to the content available at earlier stages in the funnel. Clients are also seeing it as a means to further atomise other types of content such as blog posts.

So, in conclusion...

2015 was the year that we saw:

- Blogging get serious, with marketers commissioning more and higher-quality posts

- Social media content remains buoyant, driven by a shift to platform-native content

- White papers rise from the dead, as marketers realise they play a crucial role in decision-making at the middle and bottom of the funnel

- Video fail to take off, contrary to most predictions

- Infographics start to decline, as really good ones are difficult to produce, and they’re hard to view on mobile

- ebooks seeing a bit of a resurgence, driven by late adopters of this now-mature format

Radix is a copywriting agency for the content marketing era.

We work with marketers to develop programmes of content that guide customers through every stage of the buying process.

We specialise in the B2B technology sector, with expertise in enterprise hardware and software, networking, and electronics.

We’ve written for innovative tech companies large and small, including Sprint, Fujitsu, Salesforce.com, Veeam, Oracle, Xerox, VoxGen, MATS and Spirent.

We have a monthly podcast that explores trends and issues in B2B technology copywriting. You can listen to it here.

About Radix

Sources

Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs - B2B Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America

Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs - B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America

Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs - B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America

Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs - B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America

Octopus Group, Tech Heads – B2B Nation: The Content Pinch Point

Regalix - State of B2B Social Media Marketing 2015

SocialMediaToday: 13 Digital Marketing Experts Make Bold Predictions for 2016