b2b content marketing trends report

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

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Here is a quick snapshot of the survey fi ndings:

www.twitter.com/holgerschulze

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=43707

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.

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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.




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!

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Content




#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.

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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%




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).

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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?




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.

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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




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

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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).

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what social media platforms do you use to deliver content to audiences?Q5

Linkedin

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

Sideshare

Custom developedcommunities

Google+

Pinterest

Flickr

What social media plataforms do you use to deliver content to audiences?

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

8




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.

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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




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

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what metrics do you use to measure the success of your content?Q7




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?

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who determines contentmarketing strategy?Q8

11




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





17.9% | Field Marketing

14.4% | Sales


Who creates content at your company?

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who creates content?Q9

12




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%

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what content marketing tacticsdo marketers outsource?Q10

13




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


22.1% | Product marketing


10.0% | Field marketing



5.4% | Sales


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who owns the contentmarketing budget?Q11

14




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

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what percentage of budget is allocated to content marketing?Q12

15




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

Email

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%

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what content marketingtactics is budget spent on?Q13

16




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

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how is content production volume changing over the next 12 months?Q14

17




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).

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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%




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

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how do marketers segmentand personalize content?Q16

19




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.

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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 …




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)?

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integration withmarketing automationQ18

21




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%




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

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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.



www.idgenterprise.com

http://content.netprospex.com/lets-talk-tm/

www.optify.net

http://www.maximizer.com/crm-live/CRM-Cloud.html

www.solpub.com


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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

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=43707







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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.

[email protected]

Follow Holger on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/holgerschulze

Subscribe to Holger’sTechnology Marketing Bloghttp://everythingtechnologymarketing.blogspot.com

