Cleveland, OH – B-to-B marketers are spending more, using more tactics, and distributing their content on more social networks than they have in years past, according to B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America. The survey was conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, producer of Content Marketing World, and MarketingProfs, which publishes a daily newsletter for 423,000 marketer subscribers.
B-to-B marketers continue to rate in-person events as the most effective tactic they use. In fact, 67% of survey respondents said they believe in-person events are effective while only 33% believe they are less effective. Joe Pulizzi, founder and executive director of Content Marketing Institute, told Trade Show Executive: “The potential of B-to-B events is at a very high level.”
Among the other top five tactics that B-to-B marketers rank as most effective include:
· Case studies — 64%
· Webinars/webcasts — 61%
· Blogs — 59%
· Videos — 58%
While in-person events rank the highest in terms of effectiveness, the use of other B-to-B content marketing tactics has risen greatly. The biggest jumps in tactics have been the use of research reports (used by 44% in 2012 vs. 25% in 2011), videos (used by 70% in 2012 vs. 33% in 2011), mobile content (used by 33% in 2012 vs. 15% in 2011) and virtual conferences (used by 28% in 2012 vs. 10% in 2011).
Perhaps what’s most interesting for trade show organizers is the abundance of marketers who are using social media. B-to-B marketers use an average of five social media sites to distribute content. The most popular is LinkedIn (83%), followed by Twitter (80%) and Facebook (80%), YouTube (61%) and Google+ (39%). It’s also interesting to note that in 2012 LinkedIn bumped Twitter out of the top spot as the site B-to-B marketers use most to distribute content.
On average, B-to-B marketers are spending 33% of their marketing budgets on content marketing, which is up from 26% in 2011. In addition, 54% plan on increasing content marketing spending next year.
The survey was mailed electronically in August 2012 to a sample of B-to-B marketers who are members and subscribers of Marketingprofs and the Content Marketing Institute. A total of 1,416 responded from North American companies, representing a full range of industries, functional areas and company sizes.
A full copy of the survey can be downloaded at: http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/10/2013-b2b-content-marketing-research/
Reach Joe Pulizzi at (216) 941-5842 or joe@contentinstitute.com
