The latest Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America study from the Content Marketing Institute reveals several distinguishing tactics of successful business-to-business (B2B) content marketers.
B2B content marketing remains an evolving area. Just 32% of B2B content marketers participating in the study say their content marketing is sophisticated or mature; 29% rate it as adolescent, have seen early success, and are becoming more sophisticated with measuring and scaling; 27% rate it as young and are challenged with creating a cohesive strategy and measurement plan; 11% they are undertaking first steps.
Overall, B2B marketers do not believe they are improving. Last year, 38% of marketers said they were effective at content marketing, compared to 30% this year. That finding isn’t surprising and isn’t such a bad thing, says CMI founder Joe Pulizzi.
The CMI research shows characteristics of those successful marketers.
They document their strategies. Previous CMI research established that documenting your content marketing strategy is crucial for success. Yet B2B marketers have stalled in that area. The survey indicates that 35% of B2B marketers had a documented content marketing strategy last year, compared with 32% this year.
They communicate. The most-effective B2B marketers meet daily or weekly with their content marketing team either virtually or in person. Those who meet daily or weekly say the meetings are more valuable (70%) than those who meet biweekly or monthly (49%).
They recognize success. Successful marketers know what successful content marketing looks like. That may seem basic, but 55% of B2B marketers said it is unclear within their organization what successful strategy looks like. Organizations with effective marketing programs have a clear vision of success; those that are less effective lack clarity.
They document their editorial mission statement. Forty-eight percent of the most effective marketers document their strategy, compared to 28 percent overall. Those with documented editorial strategies also tend to document their marketing strategy.
They budget for content marketing. The most effective B2B marketers allocate 42% of their total marketing budget to content marketing on average, compared to 28% for all marketers.
Other Key Take Aways for Content Marketers
The survey also revealed other key points.
Over the past six years, B2B marketers have consistently cited website traffic as their most often used metric. However, they say the most important metrics are sales lead quality (87%), sales (84%) and higher conversion rates (82%).
Lead generation (cited by 85%) and sales (cited by 84%) will be the most important goals for B2B content marketers over the next 12 months.
Though not stated in the study, those marketers with effective strategies to measure their content marketing are likely to be more successful. Measurement of each article for views, click-throughs, time-on-page, engagement, lead generation and other metrics offers clear insights into what types of content and what topics are more effective than others.
The top priority for B2B content creators is creating engaging content, followed by better understanding what content is effective and what isn’t. Just 19% ranked becoming better writers as a priority.
Ann Handly, chief content marketing officer of MarketingProfs, found that revelation disappointing. “The best content marketers need strong writing skills, because the foundation of content marketing is writing (no matter what form that content ultimately takes),” she said.
Some might say survey respondents lumped writing in with “creating engaging content,” but she doubts it. “My sense is that many of us vastly undervalue writing in the content process, which is why we have a tough time creating “engaging content”—and why that has consistently been a top challenge in the past six years.”
Bottom Line: One of the most-followed research pieces on B2B content marketing defines some key attributes of successful content marketers. Other marketers, including those in B2C, can learn from them and follow their examples to improve their effectiveness.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
Great Insights in article, Really the key to successful B2B marketing is in creating valuable content, targeting the right people and spending time focusing on opportunities that yield a high ROI. Plan your B2B marketing strategy around these three philosophies and we’re sure to be set up for a great year.Thanks for sharing a wonderful post with good Insights . i would like to share this article with my marketing team. Thank You!
Samtaa Jain
SSM