B2bcontentmarketingtrends2013-130627095110-phpapp01.pdf

Marketing Report 2013 survey results

Group Partner

Technology Marketing

Sponsored by

| Yesler | Software Shortlist | Maximizer CRM | Hanley Wood |

Sponsors

We would like to thank our sponsors for supporting the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Trends Report

Spiceworks | www.spiceworks.com Called “the future of media” by Forbes, Spiceworks connects over 2.5 million IT professionals with 1,800 technology brands. An IT application, community and content all rolled into one, Spiceworks helps technology vendors reach IT pros as they’re managing their networks, collaborating with each other, and researching the products and services they’ll spend more than $450 billion on each year.

Yesler | www.yesler.com Yesler is a B2B marketing agency that applies an integrated, end-to-end framework to the marketing challenges of technology companies so they can deliver predictable revenues, sustainable growth, and measurable results. We provide expertise in research and strategy, content marketing, marketing automation, sales enablement, customer engagement, and marketing analytics to make your marketing relevant and accountable - to your buyers, to your sales team, and to the bottom line.

Software Shortlist | www.softwareshortlist.com Software Shortlist is a trusted independent third party that provides free information and services to software buyers to help them find relevant vendors. We believe innovative growing businesses are the heart & soul of economic progress, and good software helps businesses improve their performance. We don’t sell software. We don’t develop it. We don’t implement it. We focus solely on software selection. We provide a free shortlisting service for businesses, matching requirements with relevant vendors from an extensive & growing network. If you’re thinking about how software could improve your business, or you work with a software vendor, let’s talk.

Maximizer Software | www.maximizer.com Maximizer 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 configurable for organizations in any industry, Maximizer CRM optimizes sales processes, enhances marketing initiatives, and, improves customer service to ultimately boost productivity and revenue.

Hanley Wood | www.hanleywoodmarketing.com Today, more than ever, what enriches and sustains your audience connections and relationships is content. Valueadding information, interactions and experiences. Communications that inform, educate, even entertain. Hanley Wood Marketing (HWM) has nearly 30 years of experience supporting corporate marketers and communicators with content programs and services to reach and engage key audiences and accomplish big, measurable brand and business objectives. Attract customers and prospects into community and conversations. Keep sales funnels flowing. Empower sales reps and channel partners to be more efficient and effective. It’s all about strategic content. And we’re strategic content marketers at our core. B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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Introduction B2B buyer behavior has been changing dramatically over the last few years as buyers become more sophisticated, find new ways to gather information online and via social media. 90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. *DemandGen Reports

Content marketing is going mainstream in 2013. B2B marketers are increasingly using content marketing tactics to engage B2B buyers with compelling content to educate, inform, entertain and guide them along their buying journey. But what’s behind the buzz and growing popularity of content marketing? We conducted a survey with the 50,000+ member B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn to get answers to key questions like: • What’s working and what’s not? • Who is creating content and what are they creating? • How do you measure content marketing results? We received 815 responses and are excited to share the results with you.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!

Holger Schulze

Group Owner, B2B Technology Marketing Community [email protected] | +1 302-383-5817

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS Top-5 Trends in Content Marketing 1

Content marketing is going mainstream and is becoming more sophisticated to help marketers generate more leads and enable thought leadership.

2

The popularity of white papers as a content marketing format is declining relative to interactive, easily digestible formats such as video.

3

More than 82 percent of B2B marketers are increasing their content production over the next 12 months.

4

YouTube is gaining popularity as a social media platform to reach and engage B2B audiences – Facebook is losing ground.

5

Marketing automation is on the rise. 61 percent of marketers use marketing automation platforms, up from 43 percent last year.

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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Q1

WHAT ARE THE GOALS of Content Marketing?

The top-3 goals of content marketing: 1. Lead generation (71 percent) 2. Thought leadership & market education (50 percent) 3. Customer acquisition (45 percent)

49.9% 45.0% 41.0% 35.4%

Thought leadership / market education Customer acquisition Brand awareness Lead nurturing

27.8% 24.8%

Website traffic Customers loyalty / retention Social media engagement Channel enablement

71.3%

61%

Lead generation

13.1% 6.4% 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

80%

5

Q2

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE CONTENT Marketing Tactics & Formats?

Customer testimonials (89 percent) and case studies (88 percent) are the most effective content marketing tactics.

Customer testimonials Case studies In-person events Online articles Videos White papers Product demos Webinars / webcasts Social media Research reports eNewsletters Blogging Slideware / presentations Analyst reports Press releases Infographics Polling / research Virtual / online events Microsites eBooks Mobile content Community management / threading Visual content (cartoons, memes) Print magazines Licensed / syndicated content Advertorials Branded apps Podcasts Printed books Games

White papers on the other hand experienced the biggest drop in relative popularity - moving from the number 2 spot in last year’s survey down to number 6 today. The three least popular content formats are online games, printed books and podcasts.

Effective Ineffective I don’t use it 0%

20%

40%

60%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

80%

100%

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Q3

WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT elements of effective content? So what are the ingredients of successful content?

Content success starts with audience relevance (71 percent), followed by engaging and compelling storytelling (56 percent) that triggers a specific response (56 percent).

71%

Audience relevance

56.0% 55.7% 40.0%

Engaging and compelling storytelling Triggers a response / action Effectively delivers message Originality Re-usability Well-edited copy Custom content Written for SEO Easy to produce Low cost

24.0% 17.6% 15.7% 15.3% 15.1% 8.2% 6.3% 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

80%

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Q4

HOW EFFECTIVE IS SOCIAL media in delivering content?

LinkedIn tops the list of the most effective social media platforms again with 85 percent (although

LinkedIn YouTube

this number is likely skewed considering

Twitter

the majority of survey respondents came

SlideShare

from the B2B Technology Marketing

Facebook

Community on LinkedIn). The runner ups

Custom developed communities

are YouTube (impressive 73 percent, up

Google +

from 53 percent last year) and Twitter (65

Vimeo

percent, down from 70 percent last year). Facebook on the other hand is quickly

Pinterest

losing popularity with B2B marketers

Flickr

as a social media platform to reach and engage B2B audiences (down to 39

Tumblr

percent from 54 percent last year).

Spiceworks Instagram Quora

Effective

Foursquare

Ineffective I don’t use it

StumbleUpon

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

100%

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Q5

HOW DO YOU

generate content? The vast majority of B2B marketers create

content from scratch (93 percent).

93%

Create content from scratch

34.4%

Curate or syndicate third party content

30.0%

Encourage user generated content

27.5%

License / re-use existing content

0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

80%

100%

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Q6

WHAT METRICS DO YOU USE TO

measure the success of your content? Web traffic is tied with views & downloads (both 63 percent) as the top metrics used by B2B marketers to measure the success of content marketing. The next most popular metric is sales opportunities (51 percent).

63%

Web traffic / visits Views / downloads

51.2% 50.6% 46.1%

Sales opportunities Sales lead quality Sales lead quantity

37.1% 33.0% 32.8% 28.6% 21.6% 20.5% 16.0% 4.5%

Sales / revenue Social media sharing Customer feedback Search engine rankings Search rankings Inbound links Share of conversation Don’t measure 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

80%

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Q7

WHO DETERMINES CONTENT marketing strategy? In most companies, Corporate

marketing sets content strategy (58 percent), followed by Product

marketing (38 percent), and the CEO / President / Owner (34 percent) in smaller companies that often don’t have a dedicated marketing department.

58%

Corporate marketing

38.1% 33.5%

Product marketing CEO / president / owner

24.7% 21.2% 17.2% 16.5% 15.4% 10.6%

PR / communications Sales Demand generation Field marketing Product management External agency / consultant 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

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Q8

WHO CREATES CONTENT? Corporate marketing is also the number one creator of content (56 percent), followed by product marketing (47 percent) and subject matter experts (43 percent).

Corporate marketing Product marketing

46.9% 42.9% 38.7%

Subject matter experts PR / communications

56%

29.4% 24.0% 22.8% 18.6% 13.9% 13.3%

External agency / consultant Product management CEO / president / owner Field marketing Sales Demand generation

0.2%

Nobody 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

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Q9

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF CONTENT creation do you outsource? Content marketing is mostly done in-house.

Responses

25%

24.5%

20%

18.8%

15%

12.6%

10%

8.8%

9.0%

4.5%

5%

8.1%

4.3%

3.0%

3.6% 1.7%

0%

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1.3% 100

Don’t know

Percentage of content that is outsourced

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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Q10

What content do

marketers outsource? 31%

Videos White papers Research reports Infographics Analyst reports Case studies Press releases Online articles Blogging Social media Webinars / webcasts Polling / research eBooks Microsites Customer testimonials Visual content (cartoons, memes) eNewsletters Licensed / syndicated content Mobile content Advertorials Virtual / online events Print magazines In-person events Slideware / presentations Branded apps Community management / threading Podcasts Product demos Games Printed books We don’t outsource any

29.3% 27.0% 26.7% 26.3%

The most outsourced form of content are videos (31 percent) followed by white papers (30 percent)

22.5% 20.8% 20.0% 19.6% 17.5% 17.3% 15.2% 14.7% 14.1% 12.0% 11.8% 11.6% 10.7% 9.9% 9.5% 9.1% 9.1%

and research reports (27 percent).

8.6% 8.4% 8.0% 7.4% 5.9% 5.7% 4.8% 4.6% 13.7%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

25%

30%

35%

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Q11

WHO OWNS THE CONTENT marketing budget?

For 56 percent of companies, corporate

marketing owns content marketing funds, followed by

the CEO / President / Owner (35 percent) in smaller companies. Product marketing owns the content marketing budget in 24 percent of companies.

56%

Corporate marketing

34.5%

CEO / president / owner

23.9%

Product marketing

15.3% 10.4% 8.2% 7.4% 3.8% 1.4%

PR / communications Field marketing Demand generation Product management Sales External agency / consultant 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

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Q12

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF MARKETING

budget is allocated to content marketing?

A plurality of companies allocates about 20

percent of marketing budget to content marketing.

Responses

25%

20.0%

19.7%

20%

15.2% 15%

13.3%

10%

8.7% 6.4% 3.9% 4.0% 3.7%

5%

2.9% 0%

1.5% 0.6%

0

10

20

30

40

50

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

60

70

80

90

100

Don’t know

Percentage of budget allocated to content

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Q13

HOW IS CONTENT PRODUCTION activity changing?

More than 82 percent of marketers are increasing content production over the next 12 months, 32 percent of them significantly so. 17 percent of marketers expect volume to stay flat. Virtually no marketers expect content production to decline.

82

% 49.8% | Increases 32.0% | Increases significally 16.8% | Stays flat 1.4% | Decreases 0%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

| Decreases significally

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Q14

WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST

content marketing challenges? Time / bandwidth to create content

49.2%

Producing truly engaging content

55%

35.3%

Talent to produce content

31.4%

Getting content delivered to the right audiences

marketing challenge is

having enough time and bandwidth to create content

39.0%

Producing enough content variety

The number one content

(55 percent), same as last

Measuring results

27.6%

Lack of budget to produce content

26.5%

year. The next biggest

Creating segment-specific content

26.5%

content marketing challenge

No consistent content strategy

25.7%

is producing truly engaging

Inability to measure content effectiveness

25.5%

content (49 percent) followed by producing enough content

23.7%

Understanding buyer personas and decision stages

variety to serve the needs of

17.8%

Buyers don’t want to register to consume content

marketing programs

17.3%

Finding enough targeted contacts to offer the content to Lack of process and integration across marketing

14.7%

Poor content quality

14.5%

(39 percent).

14.3%

Finding domain experts Getting executive buy-in

13.5%

Buyers’ attention span too short

12.9%

Localizing content for international markets

12.4% 0%

20%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

40%

60%

18

Q15

How do you

segment content? The most popular dimension for segmenting content is product category (46 percent), followed by vertical (41 percent) and buyer persona (41 percent). The least popular segmentation dimension is company size with 15 percent. And 16 percent of marketers don’t systematically segment content at all (compared to 20 percent last year).

46%

By product / service category

41.4%

By vertical

41.2%

By buyer persona

34.8%

By pain point

28.9%

By stage in buying cycle

14.8%

By company size

16.2%

We do not systematically segment content 0%

10%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

20%

30%

40%

50%

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Q16

MANAGING THE COMPLEXITY of B2B content marketing

What is a manageable number of unique segments, personas, and stages to produce marketing content for?

We asked our B2B marketing community, and the magic number is …

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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Q17

WHAT BUYING STAGES DO

you use to categorize content? The most popular buying stages defined by B2B marketers are problem

awareness (42 percent),

need recognition (35 percent) and purchase decision (29 percent). A whopping 30 percent of marketers don’t categorize content by buying stage.

Problem awareness

34.8%

Need recognition Purchase decision Vendor consideration Vendor evaluation / validation (demo/eval) Vendor and solution discovery Vendor selection Requirement definition Advocacy / loyalty Performance evaluation (post purchase) Procurement Priority shift We don’t categorize content by buying stage

42%

28.9% 27.6% 26.6% 26.2% 23.0% 21.1% 16.2% 13.1% 10.1% 5.3% 29.7% 0%

10%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

20%

30%

40%

50%

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Q18

INTEGRATION WITH

marketing automation Adoption of marketing automation is on the rise as automation platforms mature. 37 percent of marketers use marketing automation to generate leads, 36 percent use it for lead nurturing. Only 39 percent of B2B marketers don’t use marketing automation at all – significantly down from 57 percent last year.

36.7%

We use marketing automation to generate leads We use mareting automation to nurture leads

36.1%

We actively create content to feed automated campaigns

28.2%

We use marketing automation to engage with customers

26.0%

We sporadically use content for marketing automation campaigns

37%

15.1%

39.0%

We don’t use marketing automation 0%

10%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

20%

30%

40%

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SURVEY METHODOLOGY

The survey was completed by 815 marketers in June of 2013. Here is a detailed breakdown of the survey participant demographics.

What industry is your company in?

What is your functional role in your company?

Advertising / marketing

Marketing / advertising communications / PR

Software High tech

CEO / president / owner

Consulting Sales

Professional services Manufacturing

Consultant

Business services (Other) Internet / online services

Product management

Telecommunication Operations

Publishing / media Financial services

Engineering

Healthcare / medical / pharma 0%

Government 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

20%

40%

60%

80%

25%

What is your job title?

How many employees work at your company worldwide?

Manager Director

30.9% | Fewer than 10

Owner / CEO / president

20.4% | 10-99

VP

18.3% | 100-999

Specialist

11.9% | 1,000-10,000 10.4% | 10,000+

Analyst Intern 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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THANK YOU

Contact the Author

Many thanks to everybody who participated in this survey. If you are interested in co-sponsoring upcoming surveys, or creating your own survey report based on the wisdom of the 50,000 member B2B marketing crowd in our B2B Technology Marketing Community, please contact Holger Schulze at [email protected] or +1 302-383-5817. About the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn With over 50,000 members, the B2B Technology Marketing Community is the single largest LinkedIn group exclusively focused on B2B technology marketing topics. This group is ideal for marketing professionals in B2B high-tech industries to enable networking, sharing of ideas, best practices and opportunities

Holger Schulze

Group Owner, B2B Technology Marketing Community (LinkedIn) Email: [email protected] Phone: +1 302-383-5817

Click to join the

B2B Technology Marketing Community

on LinkedIn

Group Partner

Technology Marketing

B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | Read the 2013 survey results

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