How can you plan your Business to Content Marketing in 2014?  Through a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, this information provides guidelines and benchmarking information for content marketing strategy in 2014.  What did the survey find out? What should you expect in this year and beyond? Read more to see what will come of content marketing.

We would like to thank  Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute and Ann Handley of MarketingProfs for surveying individuals and providing this data.  To register for the CMI study, you can register and download the B2B Content Marketing Survey from CMI Website.

Content Marketing Tactics

Understanding content marketing is a valuable factor to developing a strategy.  Although the strategy and distribution has remained stable, infographics have seen the biggest increase in usage (51% to 38%).

What Tactics are being used in Content Marketing?

Content Marketing Usage and Effectiveness

More B2B Marketers Participate in Content Marketing: Compared to 91% of B2B Marketers surveyed for the 2013 survey, more marketers are using content marketing.  Currently, 93% of B2B Marketers use content marketing.

B2B Marketers Feel More Effective as Content Marketers: 42% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing.  Up from 36% last year, this shows that an increasing number of individuals are learning new tactics to reach users.

The Profile of a Best-In-Class Content Marketer is becoming more defined: What does it take to be world-class in content marketing? How many tactics should effective marketers use? What is the average content marketing budget?

Most Tactics in Marketing B2B Content are believed to be more effective year over year: For the fourth year in a row, B2B marketers overall have rated in-person events as the most effective tactic they use.  Best-in-class B2B marketers, however, rate blogs as the most effective tactic (79%), which surpasses   how they rate in-person events (76%); only 29% of their least effective peers rate blogs as effective.

Effective Content Marketers

Content Marketing Strategy

44% of Marketers have a documented Content Strategy.  This means that there is a plan in place, a content schedule, a commitment to value, and knowledge of the tactics.  A few facts to consider are as follows:

  • B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective (66% vs. 11%).
  • 48% of smaller B2B organizations (10-99 employees) have a documented content strategy, compared with 41% of large organizations (1,000+ employees).

73% of B2B organizations have someone in place to oversee content marketing strategy. Consider the following:

  • The majority of the most effective B2B marketers (86%) have someone who oversees content marketing strategy; however, only 46% of less effective marketers do.
  • Small companies (10-99 employees) are more likely than large companies (1,000+ employees) to have someone who oversees content marketing strategy (78% vs. 58%).

Content Marketing through Social Media

Distributing content is important, that’s why social media has become a great part of content marketing.  For instance, 62% of B2B users find LinkedIn to be the most important and effective means of content distribution.  In addition, the following statistics show an increasing importance of social content:

  • B2B content marketers use an average of 6 social media platforms, up from 5 last year.
  • B2B content marketers are using every social media platform listed here more often than they did last year.
  • Social media platforms that had the biggest increase in use from last year to this year are SlideShare, Google+, and Instagram.

Social Media and Content Marketing

Content Marketing Challenges

B2B Marketers do face challenges in content marketing.  Time, Quality, and Quantity top the list of challenges faced.  This is what leads to the outsourcing of content strategy, specifically in the writing and design departments.

Challenges in B2B Content Marketing

Other Content Marketing Factors: Measurement, Goals, Budget

Many of the survey respondents believed the following regarding budgeting, goal setting, and measurement of their content marketing:

  • 80% of the most effective B2B content marketers cite lead generation as a goal, compared with 64% of their least effective peers.
  • 58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget over the next 12 months.
  • Brand awareness continues to be the top organizational goal for B2B content marketing.
  • On average, 30% of B2B marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing.  The most effective B2B marketers spend a higher percentage (39%) of their budgets on content marketing   than their least effective peers do (16%).

Budget in B2B Content Marketing

Where is the Future of Content Marketing Headed?

Every year, the Content Marketing Institute puts this study out, assisting marketers in the development of a content strategy and comparison with peers.  As surveyed, there has been an increase in content effectiveness and usage, and this trend will continue through 2014.  Interested in more information from this study? Just fill out your information and we will send it to you.

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