b2b content marketing trends report
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
2012 survey results
Marketing Trends
by Holger Schulze
Sponsored by
NetProspex | Optify | Maximizer Software | Solution Publishing
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Content marketing is growing dramatically in popularity with over 84 percent of respondents increasing content marketing over the next 12 months
The biggest motivator for content marketing is its ability to drive leads, thought leadership and brand awareness, to compensate where traditional tactics are falling short
The top 3 goals for content marketing are lead generation (68 percent), thought leadership and market education (50 percent) and brand awareness (39 percent)
The most popular content formats are case studies, white papers, press releases and newsletters
The biggest challenge: time and bandwidth to create content (56 percent)
94 percent of B2B marketers create new content from scratch
The top performance metric for content marketers is web traffi c (64 percent) followed by views and downloads (59 percent). Lead quantity and lead quality are tied at 52 percent each.
This report is intended to provide benchmarks for busy B2B marketerswho are looking for guidance on how to approach content marketing.
survey highlights
1
Linkedintwitter
Here is a quick snapshot of the survey fi ndings:
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 2
The purpose of content marketing is to engage B2B buyers with compelling content (in the form of webcasts, videos, eBooks, white papers, blog posts, etc) to educate, inform, entertain, and guide them through each step in the buying cycle. And while you want to help buyersmake pragmatic and informed decisions, your ultimate goal is to persuade them to select your solution over competing alternatives.
It may sound easy to create crisp defi nitions of market segments, buyer personas, and buying stages, and then build compelling content for each relevant intersection of these dimensions.
However, the reality of implementing content marketing initiatives is a bit more complicated.
Linkedintwitter
Introduction
B2B buyer behavior has been changing dramaticallyover the last few years as buyers become more sophisticated, fi nd new ways to gather information online and via social media, and increasingly refuse to be interrupted by outbound marketing tactics.
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 3
And as they embark on content marketing strategies, B2B marketers are asking themselves questions like:
What types of content should I create? Should I outsource content creation? What forms of content work better than others?
We conducted a survey with the 30,000 + member B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn to provide answers, better understand the current state of content marketing in the B2B space, and to identify key challenges as well as best practices.
We received over 740 responses in less than 3 weeks – and here are the results of the survey.
Thanks to everyone whoparticipated in the survey!
Linkedintwitter
Content
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 4
#1 Lead Generation
With 68 percent of responses, the most mentioned goal
for content marketing is lead generation. This is up from
62 percent in last year’s survey. No major surprises here
considering that content marketing has emerged as a
critical B2B strategy to drive inbound lead generation (in
response to outbound B2B tactics becoming increasingly
ineffective). In other words, lead generation is the ultimate
promise of content marketing.
#2 Thought Leadership & Market Education
The next highest ranked content marketing goal is
thought leadership and market education with 50 percent
of responses (up from 37 percent in last year’s survey).
This pattern is also consistent with the promise of content
marketing as a strategy to educate and infl uence buyer
behavior in the vendor’s favor.
#3 Brand AwarenessBrand awareness, with 39 percent of responses (up from 34 percent last year), has replaced last year’s number three content marketing goal, lead nurturing.
Linkedintwitter
what are the goalsof content marketing?Q1
Lead generation
Thought leadership/ Market education
Brand awareness
Lead nurturing
Customer acquisition
Sales
Website traffic
Customer loyalty/ retention
Social media engagement
Channel enablement
What are your top-3-goals for content marketing?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 5
Leading the ranking are case studies (62 percent)
followed by white papers / ebooks (61 percent)
and press releases (58 percent). In contrast, the
least commonly used content marketing tactics are
advertorials (11 percent), community threading
(12 percent), and virtual events (18 percent).
Linkedintwitter
what content marketing tactics do you actively use? Q2
Case studies
White Papers / ebooks
Press releases
e-newsletters
Blogging
Webinars
Videos
Social content
In-person events
Online articles
Slideware
Product demos
Infographics/images
Polling/Research
Virtual/online events
Community management
Advertorials
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
0% 20% 40% 60%
What tactics and forms of content marketing do you actively use?
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 6
These content formats are considered most effective in engaging prospects and delivering message.
Marketers consider case studies most effective
(78 percent) - unchanged compared to last year’s
survey. This is also the most commonly used tactic
(see previous chart). White papers take the number
two spot with 73 percent (up from number three last
year), followed by live, in person events (72 percent
and down from the number two spot last year). The
least effective content formats are advertorials (18
percent), community threading (20 percent), and
virtual events (31 percent). The fastest rising content
format are info graphics with 43 percent compared
to 28 percent last year.
Linkedintwitter
how effective are content marketing tactics & formats? Q3
e-newsletters
Case studies
Webinars
Press releases
Blogging
White papers / ebooks
Sideware
Videos
In-person events
Product demos
Infographics / images
Social content
Online articles
Polling / research
Advertorials
Virtual / online events
Community management
How effective are the following content marketing tactics and formats?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Effective Ineffective I don’t use it
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
So what are the ingredientsof successful content?
It starts with engaging and compelling
storytelling (81 percent), originality (52 percent)
and customized content (50 percent), followed
by professional writing (39 percent).
what are the three most important elements of effective content?Q4
81.5% | Engaging and complelling storytelling
52.6% | Originality
49.2% | Custom content
38.5% | Well edited copy
38.3% | Professional writing
31.2% | Written for SEO
10.0% | Low cost
5.1% | High volume production
What do you consider the three most important elements of effective content?
7
Linkedintwitter
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
LinkedIn tops the list of social media platforms
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 Twitter (70 percent), Facebook (54
percent) and YouTube (53 percent).
Linkedintwitter
what social media platforms do you use to deliver content to audiences?Q5
YouTube
Sideshare
Custom developedcommunities
Google+
Flickr
What social media plataforms do you use to deliver content to audiences?
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
8
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
The vast majority of B2B marketers create
content from scratch (94 percent). Other
tactics including curating third party content
(39 percent), re-using existing content
(32 percent) and encouraging users to
generatencontent (30 percent) are still
the exception.
Linkedintwitter
93.5% | Create content from scratch
39.5% | Curate third party content
32.9% | License/Re-use existing content
30.3% | Encourage user generated content
How do you create content?
9
how do you create content?Q6
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Web traffi c (64 percent) is by a wide margin
the number one metric used by marketers to
measure the success of content marketing.
The next most popular metric is views
and downloads (59 percent), followed by
lead quantity and lead quality (tied with 52
percent each). Web traffic
Views/downloads
Lead quantity
Lead quality
Inquires
Opportunities
Sales / Revenue
Customer feedback
Search rankings
Social media engagement
Inbound links
Share of conversation
Don’t measure
What metrics do you use to measure the successof your content marketing program?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
10
Linkedintwitter
what metrics do you use to measure the success of your content?Q7
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
The next question is to find out where in
the organization content marketing strategy
is determined. In most companies
(55 percent), corporate marketing sets
content strategy, followed by product
marketing (38 percent), and the CEO/
President/Owner (37 percent) in smaller
companies that often don’t have a
dedicated marketing department.
54.6% | Corporate marketing
37.9% | Product marketing
37.1% | CEO/President Owner
24.0% | PR/Communications
19.5% | Sales
17.6% | Demand generation
15.7% | Product management
12.6% | Field marketing
6.5% | External agency/freelancer
Who determines content marketing strategy at your company?
Linkedintwitter
who determines contentmarketing strategy?Q8
11
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Corporate marketing is also the number
one creator of content in most companies
(55 percent), followed by Product Marketing
(47 percent) and PR/Communications (38
percent). About one in three companies
relies on external agencies and freelancers
to create content.
55.1% | Corporate Marketing
46.4% | Product Marketing
38.1% | PR/Communications
31.8% | External agency/freelancer
25.9% | Product management
25.6% | CEO/President Owner
17.9% | Field Marketing
14.4% | Sales
12.3% | Demand generation
Who creates content at your company?
Linkedintwitter
who creates content?Q9
12
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
The most outsourced form of content
are videos (33 percent). They are hard
to produce and most companies don’t
have the required capabilities in-
house. Videos are followed by white
papers / ebooks (32 percent) and case
studies (26 percent). In contrast, the
least outsourced tactics are community
management (6 percent), product
demos (6 percent), and in-person events
(7 percent).
Videos
White papers/ebooks
Case studies
Press releases
Infographics / images
Online articles
We don’t outsource any
Webinars
Blogging
Polling / Research
E-newsletters
Social content
AdvertorialsVirtual / online events
In-person eventsSlideware / presentationsCommunity management
/ threadingProduct demos
Which types of marketing content or tactis do you currently outsource,or expect to outsource in the future?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
Linkedintwitter
what content marketing tacticsdo marketers outsource?Q10
13
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
For 51 percent of companies, the
corporate marketing function owns content
marketing funds, followed by the CEO/
President /Owner (35 percent) in smaller
companies. Product marketing owns the
content marketing budget in 22 percent of
companies. Now let’s look at who clearly
doesn’t own content marketing budgets
in most companies: external agencies and
freelancers (1 percent), sales (5 percent), and
product management (6 percent).
Who owns the content marketing budget?
50.4% | Corporate marketing
35.1% | CEO/President Owner
22.1% | Product marketing
12.9% | PR/Communications
10.0% | Field marketing
7.3% | Demand generation
6.1% | Product management
5.4% | Sales
0.8% | External agency/freelancer
Linkedintwitter
who owns the contentmarketing budget?Q11
14
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
One of the most telling indicators of
the increasing importance of content
marketing is budget allocation. Last year’s
survey showed that the most frequent
budget allocation was 20 percent. In
our latest survey, it has moved up to 30
percent indicating a strong shift toward
content marketing.
What percentage of your marketing budget is allocated to content marketing?
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
010 30 50 70 90 Don’t Know
20 40 60 80 100
Linkedintwitter
what percentage of budget is allocated to content marketing?Q12
15
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Now that we know that content marketing
spend is going up, let’s take a look at
what tactics receive the most budget?
The largest share of budget is allocated
to tradeshows and in-person events (23
percent). This is followed by the company
website (21 percent) and email marketing
(17 percent). Tradeshows
In-person events
Company website
Print media
Social media
PPC/Paid search
Live, in-person event
PR
Webinar
Blog
Organic search
Blogs
Online Display Ads
Online directory
What percentage of your budget do you allocate to content distribution channels?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Linkedintwitter
what content marketingtactics is budget spent on?Q13
16
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Over 84 percent of marketers are
increasing content production over the
next 12 months, over 30 percent of them
significantly so. 14 percent of marketers
expect volume to stay flat. In contrast, last
year, over 71 percent of respondents saw
an increase in content production - looks
like the pace of content production is
picking up steam.How is your content production volume going to change
over the next 12 months?
53.0% | Increases
30.5% | Increases significantly
15.0% | Stays flat
1.5% | Decreases
0.0% | Decreases significantly
Linkedintwitter
how is content production volume changing over the next 12 months?Q14
17
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Top ChallengesContent marketing is complex and requires a very
different approach and skill set compared to traditional
outbound marketing tactics. We asked our marketing
community what they consider the biggest content
marketing challenges – here are the results:
The number one challenge is Having enough time and
bandwidth to create content (56 percent), replacing last
years top challenge: producing truly engaging content (53
percent). The next biggest content marketing challenge
is producing enough content to serve the needs of your
marketing programs (45 percent). This points to a lack
of resources in B2B marketing organizations, which is
confi rmed by 33 percent of respondents who selected
lack of talent as their marketing challenge. The least
pressing problem for marketers is poor content quality
(12 percent) tied with fi nding domain experts (12 percent).
Linkedintwitter
what are your biggest content marketing challenges?Q15
18
Time/bandwidth to create content
Producing trully engaging content
Producing enough content
Measuring resultsTalent to produce content
Getting content delivered tothe right audiences
No consistent content strategyCreating segment-specific content
Lack of budget to produce contentUnderstanding buyer personas
and decision stagesFinding enough targeted contacts
to offer content toLack of process
Buyers don’t want to register toconsume content
Buyers’ attention spam too shortLocalizing content forinternational markets
Getting executive buy-in
Finding domain experts
Poor content quality
What are your biggest content marketing challenges?
0% 20% 40% 60%
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
There are many different ways to slice and
organize marketing content. Should you
segment by product, buyer pain, buyer
persona, buying stage, or vertical – or all of
the above? Here is what the B2B marketing
community thinks:
The most popular and effective segmentation
dimension is product category (50 percent),
followed by vertical (36 percent) and buyer
persona (28 percent).
The least popular segmentation dimension is
company size with 16 percent. And 20 percent
of marketers dont systematically segment
content at all.
How do you segment and personalize your content?
60%
40%
20%
0%by product /
service categoryby vertical by buyer
personaby pain point by stage in
buying cyclewe don’t
systematicallysegment content
by companysize
Linkedintwitter
how do marketers segmentand personalize content?Q16
19
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
B2B content marketing is not trivial. Consider
the multitude of market segments you serve,
with multiple products, each with different buyer
personas that influence the buying decision.
And each buying process comprises a number
of stages that require content to guide buyers
to the next stage.
If you wanted to address all possible
intersections of products, markets, buyer
personas, buying stages (and have multiple
white papers, webcasts, eBooks, blog posts
for each intersection) – you would quickly
be overwhelmed by the sheer amount and
complexity of content and associated
marketing programs.
Linkedintwitter
managing the complexity of b2b content marketingQ17
20
So what is a manageable number of segments, personas, and stages B2B marketers can support?
We asked our B2B marketing community
and the magic number is …
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
One of the major trends related to content
marketing is marketing automation as a
way to get targeted content in front of
buying audiences. And while adoption
of marketing automation is growing, only
26 percent of B2B marketers are actively
creating content to feed their marketing
automation campaign. 56 percent doesnt
use marketing automation at all.
57.3% | Don’t use MA
25.5% | Actively create content feed automated campaigns
19.0% | Sporadically use content for MA campaigns
How do you integrate content marketingwith marketing automation (MA)?
Linkedintwitter
integration withmarketing automationQ18
21
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 22
The survey was completed by 740 marketers in 2012. Here is a detailed breakdown of the survey
participant demographics.
survey methodologyLinkedintwitter
Fewer than 10
10-99
100-999
1.000-10.000
10.000+
What is the size of your company (employees)?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Marketing
Owner/CIO/President
Sales
Product Management
Consultant
What is your role in your company?
Engineering
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Manager
Director
Owner/CIO/President
VP
Specialist
What is your job title?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 35%30%
High-tech
Advertising/Marketing
Business services
Manufacturing
Telecommunication
What industry is your company in?
Software
Professional services
Helathcare
Financial services
Government
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 23
We would like to thank our sponsors for supporting the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Report:
IDG Enterprise | www.idgenterprise.comIDG Enterprise brings together the unique brands (CFOworld, CIO, CIO Executive Council, Computerworld, CSO, DEMO, InfoWorld, ITworld, and Network World) to serve the information needs of our IT and security-focused audiences. By leveraging the strengths of each individual brand, while simultaneously harnessing their collective reach and audience affi nity, we provide market leadership and media best practices for our marketing customers to engage their customers across our portfolio.
NetProspex | http://content.netprospex.com/lets-talk-tm/NetProspex drives B2B lead generation by providing marketers with targeted prospect lists, data cleansing, and powerful analytics to understand their data.
Optify | www.optify.netOptify helps professional B2B marketers reach more buyers and generate more demand. Optify’s Inbound Marketing Suite brings together enterprise-class SEO, social marketing, website analytics and tools that B2B marketers need to increase awareness, infl uence buyers across social networks, and engage with prospects at the earliest point of their buyer’s journey.
sponsors
Linkedintwitter
Maximizer Software | http://www.maximizer.com/crm-live/CRM-Cloud.htmlMaximizer 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 confi gurable for organizations in any industry, Maximizer CRM optimizes sales processes, enhances marketing initiatives, and, improves customer service to ultimately boost productivity and revenue.
Solution Publishing | www.solpub.comSolution Publishing utilizes proprietary semantic technologies to deliver exceptionally relevant content to its permission based B-to-B audiences. Technology professionals and business leaders value our IT Solution Journal as a customized research department they rely on to remain current and explore business solutions. Technology marketers use IT Solution Journal for high quality lead and demand generation.
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 24
Linkedintwitter
About the B2B TechnologyMarketing Community
With over 20,000 members, the B2B Technology
Marketing Community is the single largest LinkedIn group
exclusively focused on B2B technology marketing. This
group is for marketing professionals in B2B high-tech
industries to enable networking, sharing of ideas, best
practices and opportunities.
Bottom line: Content marketing is rapidly moving along the adoption
life cycle and best practices are rapidly emerging. I hope
you enjoyed this survey report and found the data points
helpful for your own content marketing efforts.
thank you
Join the B2B TECHNOLOGYMARKETINGCOMMUNITY
TechnologyMarketing
Group Partner
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 25
Linkedintwitter
about the author
Our goal is to educate B2B marketers on new trends,
share marketing ideas and best practices, and make
it easier for you to find the information you care
about to do your jobs successfully.
Holger Schulze is a B2B technology marketing
executive delivering demand, brand awareness, and
revenue growth for high-tech companies.
A prolific blogger and online community builder,
Holger also manages the B2B Technology Marketing
Community on LinkedIn with over 30,000+ members.
Holger Schulze is the author of the syndicated blog Everything Technology Marketing.
Follow Holger on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/holgerschulze
Subscribe to Holger’sTechnology Marketing Bloghttp://everythingtechnologymarketing.blogspot.com