It’s the moment we have all been waiting for: Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has released its seventh annual “B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends” report.
Here are some key findings:
Right now, 89 percent of B2B marketers are using content marketing—meaning content creation is still a top advertising initiative. This is a small increase from last year, when 88 percent of marketers claimed they were using content marketing.
Of the 11 percent of nonusers, 52 percent plan to launch a content marketing effort within the next 12 months. And 70 percent of B2B marketers report they plan to create more content in 2017 than they did this year.
Furthermore, the average business spends 29 percent of its total marketing budget on content marketing. And 39 percent plan to increase spending over the next 12 months.
This year’s report also provides insight into how organizations are structuring their content marketing departments. Twenty-four percent of B2B marketers reported having a centralized content marketing group that works with multiple brands or product lines throughout the organization. Five percent reported having a content marketing team for each product line or property. Thirteen percent reported having both a centralized group and individual teams.
An overwhelming 55 percent of B2B marketers reported that a small team or single person serves the entire organization.
Now, let’s look at how B2B marketers are distributing their content:
Ninety-three percent of B2B marketers reported using email. This was followed by LinkedIn (89 percent), Twitter (77 percent), Facebook (76 percent), YouTube (59 percent), Google Plus (35 percent), print (30 percent), Instagram (26 percent) and SlideShare (26 percent). B2B marketers use an average of six different content distribution channels.
Pinterest, Medium.com, Snapchat, iTunes and Tumblr were all mentioned as additional channels that B2B markters are using to distribute content.
It’s important to remember that there are many channels available for posting (and cross-posting) content other than your website or blog. And the more channels that you utilize, the more traffic you will bring to your website.
To that point, 80 percent of B2B content marketers claimed that their organization will be focusing on content marketing over the next 12 months. Some 79 percent claimed they will be focusing on brand awareness. And 71 percent claimed they will be focusing on engagement.
If your business has these goals in mind, it’s vital to branch out and explore the communities where your customers are spending time online. Don’t sit back and wait for them to discover your brand.
One thing to keep upper most in your thoughts is that it doesn’t matter how much content you’re producing, or where you are posting, if it’s missing the mark entirely. Take this opportunity to perform a gut check, and consider partnering with a team of professionals who can help ensure your content is sending the right message to your readers.
To learn more about how Content Boost can help, click here.
