B2B Content Marketing Strategy Plan

The best B2B content marketing strategy is informed by data and one of the most consistent B2B marketing research reports chock full of data comes from content marketing institutes and MarketingProfs.

Today is the 6th edition of B2B Content Marketing

The 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – A North America report was published revealing a canyon of difference between successful content marketers and those that seem to be lost in the wilderness. This report is also a reality check for content marketers who drink too much of their own Kool-Aid, offering a mix of slightly downward trend data right along with numerous reasons for future content marketing optimism.

What do I mean by reality check?

Fewer marketers have a documented content marketing strategy than last year 32% vs. 35% and fewer marketers see their content marketing as effective 30% vs. 38%.

What are the content marketing disconnects?

Here’s one example: 57% of B2B marketers are still using Print or Other Offline Promotions, even though only 31% consider that paid tactic as effective. Also, 55% are still using traditional banner ads, even though only 29% consider banners effective.

B2B Marketers are still missing tactics.

The most popular content marketing tactics are things like shiny object social media (93%) and blogs (81%) while the most effective B2B content marketing tactics are In-Person Events (75%) and Webinars / Webcasts (66%). Only case studies get near-top treatment when it comes to both popularity (82%) and effectiveness (65%).

Marketers are still challenged

To produce engaging content (60%) on a consistent basis (57%). That said, their priorities are in the right place, putting the task of creating engaging content (72%) at the top of the list for future focus.

Here’s the good news:

88% of B2B marketers are using content marketing, up from 86% in 2015 and 76% of marketers will produce more content in 2016 – they just want to know what content is effective and what isn’t (65%). They also want to know more about repurposing (57%) creating more visual content (51%) and telling better stories (41%).

The most successful B2B content marketers do these four things

This includes documenting both their strategy (48%) and editorial mission statements (49%) as well as meeting with their content teams frequently (41%) and having organizational clarity on what content marketing success looks like (55%). There’s a consistent message to this: marketers who are goal-focused and strategic in planning and action are more effective.

B2B marketers who are goals focused and strategic in planning and action are more effective.

Ways to use this data:

Marketing research data, statistics, and charts are useful in different ways when it comes to informing a B2B content marketing program. Whether it’s citing a key stat when building a business case, advocating a particular course of action in a report, or reinforcing recommendations in a presentation, the kind of information in this report can be effectively persuasive.

That’s why I’ve had the individual statistics broken out by category so you can easily copy and paste them into whatever content, presentation or social share you’re creating. Just be sure to cite @CMIContent / @MarketingProfs as the source.

Hopefully, this compendium will help those with clarity about content marketing confirm they are on the right track and at the same time help those that are a little lost get pointed in the right direction.

B2B Content Marketing Use and Effectiveness

88% of B2B marketers used content marketing (86% in 2015)
12% of B2B marketers do not use content marketing

8% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as sophisticated
24% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as mature
29% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as an adolescent
27% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as young
11% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing maturity as the first step

CMI’s Content Marketing Maturity Definitions

1. Sophisticated: Providing accurate measurements to the business and scaling across the organization

2. Mature: Finding success, yet challenging with integration across the organization

3. Adolescent: Have developed a business case, seeing early success, becoming more sophisticated with measurement and scaling

4. Youth: Growing pains, challenged with creating a cohesive strategy and a measurement plan

5. First Steps: Doing some aspects of content but have not yet begun to make content marketing a process

64% of sophisticated/mature marketers say they are effective at content marketing
6% of young/first step marketers are effective at content marketing.

5% of B2B marketers say it is very effective
24% of B2B marketers say it is effective
44% of B2B marketers say they are neutral
22% of B2B marketers say it is minimally effective
1% of B2B marketers say it is not at all effective

What do the most successful content marketers do to be more effective?

48% of B2B marketers with a documented content marketing strategy are effective
49% of B2B marketers with a documented editorial mission statement are effective
55% of B2B marketers with organizational clarity on what content marketing success looks like is effective
41% of B2B marketers that meet daily or weekly are effective

44% of B2B marketers are clear about what a successful marketing program looks like
34% of B2B marketers are NOT clear about what a successful marketing program looks like
21% of B2B marketers are unsure what a successful marketing program looks like

Content Marketing Strategy and Organization

32% of B2B marketers have documented this strategy
48% of B2B marketers have an undocumented this strategy
16% of B2B marketers do not have documented content for this strategy
4% of B2B marketers are unsure if they have documented this strategy.

54% of B2B marketers say team meetings are valuable for content marketing effectiveness

Content Creation and Distribution

76% of B2B marketers will produce more content than in 2015
19% of B2B marketers will produce the same amount of content as in 2015
2% of B2B marketers will produce less content than in 2015

Top content marketing tactics:
(the average number of tactics used: 13)

93% Social Media Content
82% Case Studies
81% Blogs
81% eNewsletters
81% In-Person Events
79% Articles on Your Website
79% Videos
76% Illustrations / Photos
71% White Papers
67% Infographics
66% Webinars / Webcasts
65% Online Presentations
49% Research Reports
47% Microsites / Separate Website Hubs
42% Brand Content Tools
39% eBooks
36% Print Magazines
30% Books
29% Digital Magazines
28% Mobile Apps
25% Virtual Conferences
23% Podcasts
22% Print Newsletters
12% Games / Gamification

The most effective B2B content marketing tactics:

75% In-Person Events
66% Webinars / Webcasts
65% Case Studies
63% White Papers
62% Videos
61% Research Reports
60% eNewsletters
59% Blogs
58% Infographics
58% Online Presentations

Top social media platforms for B2B content marketers:
(Average social platforms used: 6)

94% LinkedIn
87% Twitter
84% Facebook
74% YouTube
62% Google+
37% SlideShare
29% Instagram
25% Pinterest
21% Vimeo
10% iTunes
9% Tumblr
7% Vine
6% Medium
6% Periscope
5% Snapchat

Most effective social media platforms for content marketers:

Congratulations yet again to our client LinkedIn for being the top and most effective social media platform for B2B content marketers!

Paid advertising tactics used most by content marketers:

66% Search Engine Marketing
57% Print or Other Offline Promotions
55% of Traditional Online Banner ads
52% Promoted Posts
51% Social Ads
29% Native Ads
14% Content Discovery Tools

Most effective paid advertising tactics used by content marketers:

55% Search Engine Marketing
48% Promoted Posts
45% Content Discovery Tools
45% Social Ads
40% Native Ads
31% Print or Other Offline Promotions
29% Traditional Banner Ads

Goals and Metrics

Most important goals for B2B content marketing:

85% Lead Generation
84% Sales
78% Lead Nurturing
77% Brand Awareness
76% Engagement
74% Customer Retention / Loyalty
61% Customer Advocacy
58% Upsell / Cross-Sell

Important metrics for B2B content marketing:

87% Sales Lead Quality
84% Sales
82% Higher Conversion Rates
71% Sales Lead Quantity
71% Website Traffic
69% Brand Lift
67% SEO Ranking
66% Customer Renewal Rates
64% Purchase Intent
62% Subscriber Growth

Budgets and Spending

28% on average is the percentage of total marketing budgets spent on content marketing
51% of B2B marketers will increase their marketing spending in 2016

Challenges and Priorities

Top challenges for B2B content marketers:

60% Producing Engaging Content
57% Measuring Content Effectiveness
57% Producing Content Consistently
52% Measuring the ROI of Content Marketing Programs
35% Lack of Budget
35% Producing a Variety of Content
25% Gaps in Knowledge and Skills of Internal Teams
24% Understanding / Choosing Technology
23% Lack of Integration across marketing
21% Finding or Training Skilled Content Creation / Marketing Professionals
19% Lack of buy-in/vision from higher-ups
18% Implementing the technology that we already have

Top priorities for B2B content marketers:

72% Create More Engaging Content
65% Better Understanding of What Content is Effective and What Isn’t
57% Finding More and Better Ways to Repurpose Content
51% Creating Visual Content
41% Becoming Better Storytellers
41% Better Understanding of the Audience
38% Content Optimization
22% Content Curation
20% Content Personalization
19% Becoming Stronger Writers