b2b content marketing trends 2013

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read tHe 2013 SuRveY ReSultS

We would like to thank our sponsors for supporting the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Trends Report

Spiceworks | www.spiceworks.comCalled “the future of media” by Forbes, Spiceworks connects over 2.5 million IT professionals with 1,800 technology brands. An IT application, community and content all rolled into one, Spiceworks helps technology vendors reach IT pros as they’re managing their networks, collaborating with each other, and researching the products and services they’ll spend more than $450 billion on each year.

Yesler | www.yesler.comYesler is a B2B marketing agency that applies an integrated, end-to-end framework to the marketing challenges of technology companies so they can deliver predictable revenues, sustainable growth, and measurable results. We provide expertise in research and strategy, content marketing, marketing automation, sales enablement, customer engagement, and marketing analytics to make your marketing relevant and accountable - to your buyers, to your sales team, and to the bottom line.

Software Shortlist | www.softwareshortlist.comSoftware Shortlist is a trusted independent third party that provides free information and services to software buyers to help them find relevant vendors. We believe innovative growing businesses are the heart & soul of economic progress, and good software helps businesses improve their performance. We don’t sell software. We don’t develop it. We don’t implement it. We focus solely on software selection. We provide a free shortlisting service for businesses, matching requirements with relevant vendors from an extensive & growing network. If you’re thinking about how software could improve your business, or you work with a software vendor, let’s talk.

Maximizer Software | www.maximizer.comMaximizer Software delivers Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to meet the needs, budgets and access requirements of entrepreneurs, medium and small businesses and divisions of large enterprises. Easily configurable for organizations in any industry, Maximizer CRM optimizes sales processes, enhances marketing initiatives, and, improves customer service to ultimately boost productivity and revenue.

Hanley Wood | www.hanleywoodmarketing.comToday, more than ever, what enriches and sustains your audience connections and relationships is content. Value-adding information, interactions and experiences. Communications that inform, educate, even entertain. Hanley Wood Marketing (HWM) has nearly 30 years of experience supporting corporate marketers and communicators with content programs and services to reach and engage key audiences and accomplish big, measurable brand and business objectives. Attract customers and prospects into community and conversations. Keep sales funnels flowing. Empower sales reps and channel partners to be more efficient and effective. It’s all about strategic content. And we’re strategic content marketers at our core.

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SponSorS

https://twitter.com/holgerschulze

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http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze

http://www.spiceworks.com

http://www.yesler.com

http://www.softwareshortlist.com

http://www.maximizer.com/cloud-crm/

http://www.hanleywoodmarketing.com/


Content marketing is going mainstream in 2013. B2B marketers are increasingly using content marketing tactics to engage B2B buyers with compelling content to educate, inform, entertain and guide them along their buying journey.

But what’s behind the buzz and growing popularity of content marketing? We conducted a survey with the 50,000+ member B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn to get answers to key questions like:

• What’s working and what’s not? • Who is creating content and what are they creating? • How do you measure content marketing results?

We received 815 responses and are excited to share the results with you.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!

Group Owner, B2B Technology Marketing [email protected] | +1 302-383-5817

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B2B buyer behavior has been changing dramatically over the last few years as buyers become more sophisticated, find new ways to gather information online and via social media. 90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. *DemandGen Reports

IntroductIon

Holger Schulze





SurVEY HIGHLIGHtS

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Content marketing is going mainstream and is becoming more sophisticated to help marketers generate more leads and enable thought leadership.

The popularity of white papers as a content marketing format is declining relative to interactive, easily digestible formats such as video.

More than 82 percent of B2B marketers are increasing their content production over the next 12 months.

YouTube is gaining popularity as a social media platform to reach and engage B2B audiences – Facebook is losing ground.

Marketing automation is on the rise. 61 percent of marketers use marketing automation platforms, up from 43 percent last year.

top-5 trends in content Marketing

1

2

3

4

5





of Content Marketing?Q1 WHAt ArE tHE GoALS

Lead generation

Thought leadership / market education

Customer acquisition

Brand awareness

Lead nurturing

Website traffic

Customers loyalty / retention

Social media engagement

Channel enablement

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

61%49.9%

45.0%41.0%

35.4%27.8%

24.8%13.1%

6.4%

71.3%

The top-3 goals of content marketing:

1. Lead generation (71 percent)

2. Thought leadership & market education (50 percent)

3. Customer acquisition (45 percent)

5





Marketing Tactics & Formats? Q2HoW EFFEctIVE ArE contEnt

White papers on the other hand

experienced the biggest drop in

relative popularity - moving from

the number 2 spot in last year’s

survey down to number 6 today.

The three least popular content

formats are online games, printed

books and podcasts.

6

Customer testimonials (89 percent) and case

studies (88 percent) are the most effective

content marketing tactics.

Customer testimonialsCase studies

In-person eventsOnline articles

VideosWhite papers

Product demosWebinars / webcasts

Social mediaResearch reports

eNewslettersBlogging

Slideware / presentationsAnalyst reportsPress releases

InfographicsPolling / research

Virtual / online eventsMicrosites

eBooksMobile content

Community management / threadingVisual content (cartoons, memes)

Print magazinesLicensed / syndicated content

AdvertorialsBranded apps

PodcastsPrinted books

Games

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Effective

Ineffective

I don’t use it





elements of effective content?Q3WHAt ArE tHE MoSt IMportAnt

So what are the ingredients of successful content?

Content success starts with audience relevance (71 percent), followed by engaging and compelling

storytelling (56 percent) that triggers a specific response (56 percent).

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Audience relevance

Engaging and compelling storytelling

Triggers a response / action

Effectively delivers message

Originality

Re-usability

Well-edited copy

Custom content

Written for SEO

Easy to produce

Low cost

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

40.0%55.7%56.0%

24.0%17.6%

15.7%15.3%15.1%

8.2%6.3%

71%





media in delivering content?Q4HoW EFFEctIVE IS SocIAL

LinkedIn tops the list of the most effective social media platforms again with 85 percent (although

this number is likely skewed considering

the majority of survey respondents came

from the B2B Technology Marketing

Community on LinkedIn). The runner ups

are YouTube (impressive 73 percent, up

from 53 percent last year) and Twitter (65

percent, down from 70 percent last year).

Facebook on the other hand is quickly

losing popularity with B2B marketers

as a social media platform to reach and

engage B2B audiences (down to 39

percent from 54 percent last year).

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LinkedIn

YouTube

Twitter

SlideShare

Facebook

Custom developedcommunities

Google +

Vimeo

Pinterest

Flickr

Tumblr

Spiceworks

Instagram

Quora

Foursquare

StumbleUpon

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Effective

Ineffective

I don’t use it





generate content?Q5HoW do You

The vast majority of B2B marketers create content from scratch (93 percent).

9

Create content from scratch

Curate or syndicate third party content

Encourage user generated content

License / re-use existing content

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

34.4%

30.0%

27.5%

93%





measure the success of your content? Q6WHAt MEtrIcS do You uSE to

Web traffic is tied with views & downloads (both 63 percent) as the top metrics used by B2B marketers to measure the success of content marketing.

The next most popular metric is sales opportunities (51 percent).

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Web traffic / visits

Views / downloads

Sales opportunities

Sales lead quality

Sales lead quantity

Sales / revenue

Social media sharing

Customer feedback

Search engine rankings

Search rankings

Inbound links

Share of conversation

Don’t measure

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

37.1%46.1%

50.6%51.2%

33.0%32.8%

28.6%21.6%

20.5%16.0%

4.5%

63%





marketing strategy?Q7 WHo dEtErMInES contEnt

In most companies, Corporate marketing sets content strategy (58 percent), followed by Product

marketing (38 percent), and the CEO / President / Owner (34 percent) in smaller companies that often don’t

have a dedicated marketing department.

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Corporate marketing

Product marketing

CEO / president / owner

PR / communications

Sales

Demand generation

Field marketing

Product management

External agency / consultant

0% 20% 40% 60%

38.1%33.5%

24.7%21.2%

17.2%16.5%

15.4%10.6%

58%





Q8WHo crEAtES contEnt?

Corporate marketing is also the number one creator of content (56 percent), followed by product marketing (47 percent) and subject matter experts (43 percent).

12

Corporate marketing

Product marketing

Subject matter experts

PR / communications


Product management


Field marketing

Sales

Demand generation

Nobody

0% 20% 40% 60%

38.7%42.9%

46.9%

29.4%24.0%

22.8%18.6%

13.9%13.3%

0.2%

56%





Q9Content marketing is mostly done in-house.

13

0

10%

5%

0%

15%

20%

25%

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Don’t know

24.5%

18.8%

12.6%

9.0% 8.8%

4.5% 4.3%3.0% 3.6%

1.7%1.3%

8.1%

Percentage of content that is outsourced

Responses

creation do you outsource?WHAt pErcEntAGE oF contEnt





marketers outsource?Q10 WHAt contEnt do

The most outsourced form of content are videos(31 percent) followed

by white papers (30 percent)

and research reports (27 percent).

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VideosWhite papers

Research reportsInfographics

Analyst reportsCase studies

Press releasesOnline articles

BloggingSocial media

Webinars / webcastsPolling / research

eBooksMicrosites

Customer testimonialsVisual content (cartoons, memes)

eNewslettersLicensed / syndicated content

Mobile contentAdvertorials

Virtual / online eventsPrint magazines

In-person eventsSlideware / presentations

Branded appsCommunity management / threading

PodcastsProduct demos

GamesPrinted books

We don’t outsource any

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

29.3%31%

27.0%26.7%26.3%

22.5%20.8%

20.0%19.6%

17.5%17.3%

15.2%14.7%

14.1%

13.7%

12.0%11.8%11.6%

10.7%9.9%

9.5%9.1%9.1%

8.6%8.4%8.0%

7.4%5.9%

5.7%4.8%

4.6%





Q11For 56 percent of companies, corporate marketing owns content marketing funds, followed by

the CEO / President / Owner (35 percent) in smaller companies. Product marketing owns the content marketing

budget in 24 percent of companies.

15

Corporate marketing


Product marketing

PR / communications

Field marketing

Demand generation

Product management

Sales


0% 20% 40% 60%

34.5%23.9%

15.3%10.4%

8.2%7.4%

3.8%1.4%

56%

marketing budget?WHo oWnS tHE contEnt





Q12A plurality of companies allocates about 20 percent of marketing budget to content marketing.

16

0

10%

5%

0%

15%

20%

25%

10 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Don’t know20

2.9%

13.3%

15.2%

20.0%

8.7%

6.4%

3.9% 4.0% 3.7%

1.5%0.6%

19.7%

Percentage of budget allocated to content

Responses

budget is allocated to content marketing? WHAt pErcEntAGE oF MArKEtInG





Q13More than 82 percent of marketers are increasing content production over the next 12

months, 32 percent of them significantly so. 17 percent of marketers expect volume to stay flat. Virtually no

marketers expect content production to decline.

17

32.0% | Increases significally

49.8% | Increases

16.8% | Stays flat

1.4% | Decreases

0% | Decreases significally

activity changing? HoW IS contEnt productIon

82%





Q14The number one content

marketing challenge is

having enough time and bandwidth to create content

(55 percent), same as last

year. The next biggest

content marketing challenge

is producing truly engaging

content (49 percent) followed

by producing enough content

variety to serve the needs of

marketing programs

(39 percent).

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Time / bandwidth to create content

Producing truly engaging content

Producing enough content variety

Talent to produce content

Getting content delivered to the right audiences

Measuring results

Lack of budget to produce content

Creating segment-specific content

No consistent content strategy

Inability to measure content effectiveness

Understanding buyer personas and decision stages

Buyers don’t want to register to consume content

Finding enough targeted contacts to offer the content to

Lack of process and integration across marketing

Poor content quality

Finding domain experts

Getting executive buy-in

Buyers’ attention span too short

Localizing content for international markets

0% 20% 40% 60%

49.2%

39.0%

35.3%

31.4%

27.6%

26.5%

26.5%

25.7%

25.5%

23.7%

17.8%

17.3%

14.7%

14.5%

14.3%

13.5%

12.9%

12.4%

55%

content marketing challenges? WHAt ArE Your BIGGESt





Q15The most popular dimension for segmenting content is product category (46 percent), followed by vertical (41 percent) and buyer persona (41 percent).

The least popular segmentation dimension is company size with 15 percent. And 16 percent of marketers don’t

systematically segment content at all (compared to 20 percent last year).

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segment content?HoW do You

16.2%

By product / service category

By vertical

By buyer persona

By pain point

By stage in buying cycle

By company size

We do not systematically segment content

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

28.9%

34.8%

14.8%

41.2%

41.4%46%





Q16What is a manageable number of unique segments, personas, and stages to produce marketing content for?

20

of B2B content marketingMAnAGInG tHE coMpLEXItY

We asked our B2B marketing community, and the magic number is …





Q17The most popular buying stages defined by B2B marketers are problem awareness (42 percent),

need recognition (35 percent) and purchase decision (29 percent). A whopping 30 percent of

marketers don’t categorize content by buying stage.

21

you use to categorize content?WHAt BuYInG StAGES do

Problem awareness

Need recognition

Purchase decision

Vendor consideration

Vendor evaluation / validation (demo/eval)

Vendor and solution discovery

Vendor selection

Requirement definition

Advocacy / loyalty

Performance evaluation (post purchase)

Procurement

Priority shift

We don’t categorize contentby buying stage

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

26.6%27.6%

28.9%

29.7%

34.8%

26.2%23.0%

21.1%16.2%

13.1%10.1%

5.3%

42%





Q18Adoption of marketing automation is on the rise as automation platforms mature.

37 percent of marketers use marketing automation to generate leads, 36 percent use it for lead

nurturing.

Only 39 percent of B2B marketers don’t use marketing automation at all – significantly down from 57

percent last year.

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marketing automationIntEGrAtIon WItH

We use marketing automationto generate leads

We use mareting automationto nurture leads

We actively create content to feedautomated campaigns

We use marketing automation toengage with customers

We sporadically use content formarketing automation campaigns

We don’t use marketing automation

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

28.2%

36.1%

26.0%

15.1%

39.0%

37%

36.7%





The survey was completed by 815 marketers in June

of 2013. Here is a detailed breakdown of the survey

participant demographics.

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SurVEY MEtHodoLoGY

Advertising / marketing

Software

High tech

Consulting

Professional services

Manufacturing

Business services (Other)

Internet / online services

Telecommunication

Publishing / media

Financial services

Healthcare / medical / pharma

Government

What industry is your company in?

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Owner / CEO / president

VP

Specialist

Analyst

Intern

What is your job title?

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Director

Manager

How many employees work at your company worldwide?

20.4% | 10-99

30.9% | Fewer than 10

18.3% | 100-999

11.9% | 1,000-10,000

10.4% | 10,000+

Sales

Consultant

Product management

Operations

What is your functional role in your company?

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%


Marketing / advertisingcommunications / PR

Engineering




B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read tHe 2013 SuRveY ReSultS 24

tHAnK You

Many thanks to everybody who participated in this survey.

If you are interested in co-sponsoring upcoming surveys, or creating your own survey report based on the wisdom of the 50,000 member B2B marketing crowd in our B2B Technology Marketing Community, please contact Holger Schulze at [email protected] or +1 302-383-5817.

About the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn

With over 50,000 members, the B2B Technology Marketing Community is the single largest LinkedIn group exclusively focused on B2B technology marketing topics. This group is ideal for marketing professionals in B2B high-tech industries to enable networking, sharing of ideas, best practices and opportunities

Click to join the B2B TeChnoLoGy MARkeTInG CoMMunITy on LinkedIn Technology

Marketing

Group Partner

ConTACT The AuThor

holger SchulzeGroup Owner, B2B Technology Marketing Community (LinkedIn)

email: [email protected]: +1 302-383-5817






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