The Content Marketing Institute (CM), Marketing Profs, and Brightcove have published a report of easy to read stats on the state of business-to-business content marketing in 2012. Whether you plan on bucking the trends or installing what seems to be working, this is solid research that will help you organize your content marketing in 2013. It's based on a survey conducted in August 2012 of 1,416 members and subscribers of CM and Marketing Profs. It covers businesses in a variety of industries and sizes.
Check it out and feel free to download (PDF file): B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarkds, Budgets, and Trends - North America
The idea of "content marketing" is still pretty new to a lot of businesses, so let me help you get started with a quick description of what it's all about.
The people at the Content Marketing Institute are, in my opinion, THE experts in the new internet marketing and they define content marketing as: "...a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action."
An example? You're reading it! If this post is valuable to you, if it helps you in your thinking about marketing your business and improving your position in the marketplace, then I've produced an effective piece of content marketing. Hopefully, as you experience more marketing tips and insights from NKB Marketing, you'll call me when you're ready for some professionally written SEO Web content.
Some interesting points in the research, keeping in mind that the respondents were subscribers to CM and Marketing Profs, obviously interested at least in learning about content online:
The average number of content marketing tactics used by businesses was 12. Tactics are such things as social media, blogs, articles on websites etc. I thought this was surprisingly high since even the smallest companies in the survey used an average of 11. You'll also see a list of the most popular tactics in descending order, the top one, you guessed it, social media.
And the thing I've been talking about is using social media to distribute your content...using your blog to establish your authority and get it out there on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. There's never been a better time to blog.
A nice little stat for us content writers and developers is that 54% of B2B marketers will increase their budgets for content marketing over the next 12 months. Though many are bringing their content marketing in-house, that doesn't mean they aren't going to need help organizing their strategies and learning the publishing game. And here again, NKB Marketing can help.
There's lots more so download the survey and place it with the rest of your 2013 business planning materials. One thing worth noting here is that over and above the survey, I respect the Content Marketing Institute very much as it and its founder, Joe Pulizzi, are pioneers in the new 21st century marketing paradigm. And Marketing Profs is full of valuable tips and techniques for today's business marketing. I recommend content marketers subscribe to both of their blogs.
Until next time,
Nick
Other helpful posts:
Now You Can Punch Above Your Weight Online
Google is Using Content as THE Driving Force for SEO
Gary Vaynerchuk's Down Home Internet Marketing
Your Website & How to Pack 'Em In like the Uptown Grill
The Secret that Drives Winning Web Content
