Every year the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingPros create a report showcasing the latest trends in B2B content marketing. This report presents the findings from 1820 respondents who said they were B2B marketers in North America.
Document your B2B content marketing strategy
One key theme emerged from this year’s B2B research: If you want to be more effective at content marketing, document your strategy.
- 35% of B2B companies surveyed have a documented content marketing strategy
- 48% say that have a content marketing strategy but it is not documented
Having a verbal strategy is a great first step. But the research shows that it pays to take time to write it down: 60% of those who have a documented strategy rate themselves highly in terms of content marketing effectiveness, compared with 32% of those who have a verbal strategy.
93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing
Most B2B companies are using content marketing, but less than half say they are effective at content marketing:
How the most effective content marketers do it
- 66% of the most effective marketers has a documented content strategy
- 86% of the most effective marketers has someone who oversees content marketing strategy
- 15 – Average number of content marketing tactics used by the most effective content marketers
- 7 – Average number of social media platforms used by the most effective B2B marketers
- 39% – The percentage of marketing budget spent on content marketing by the most effective B2B marketers
- 35% of the most effective content marketers are challenged with producing engaging content
Content marketing tactics
One of the most interesting set of numbers from this report show that B2B marketers us an average of 13 content marketing strategies. Of these tactics, 92 percent cite social media content (other than blogs) as the most used, followed by eNewsletters (83 percent), and articles on their website (81 percent). It’s interesting that while there is a preponderance of digital tactics in this list, there are also some tried-and-true traditional marketing tactics that continue to be useful and effective:
- 92% Social Media (other than blogs)
- 83% eNewsletters
- 81% Articles on your website
- 80% Blogs
- 77% In-person events
- 77% Case studies
- 76% Videos
- 68% Articles on other websites
- 68% Whitepapers
- 63% Online presentations
- 62% Infographics
- 61% Webinars
- 48% Research reports
- 47% Microsites
- 38% Branded content tools
- 38% Mobile content
- 35% Print magazines
- 34% eBooks
- 30% Books
- 28% Mobile apps
- 27% Digital magazines
- 26% Podcasts
- 25% Syndicated content
- 25% Virtual conferences
- 24% Annual reports
- 22% Print newsletters
- 10% Games
Content Marketing Tactics Effectiveness
- 69% of B2B marketers rate in-person events as effective
- 64% of B2B marketers rate webinars as effective
- 60% of B2B marketers rate videos as effective
- 60% of B2B marketers rate blogs as effective
- 58% of B2B marketers rate case studies as effective
- 58% of B2B marketers rate eNewsletters as effective
- 58% of B2B marketers rate research reports as effective
- 58% of B2B marketers rate white papers as effective
- 55% of B2B marketers rate eBooks as effective
Which content marketing tactics are outsourced?
- 64% of B2B marketers outsource writing
- 54% of B2B marketers outsource design
- 30% of B2B marketers outsource content distribution
- 22% of B2B marketers outsource editing
- 13% of B2B marketers outsource measurement & analytics
- 8% of B2B marketers outsource content planning & strategy
- 5% of B2B marketers outsource buyer persona creation
