62 per cent of US marketers say they’re ineffective at content marketing: Brightcove study
A study of B2B marketers in the US sponsored by online video firm Brightcove has found that only 38 per cent of them think they’re effective at content marketing.
The announcement:
SINGAPORE, October 2, 2014 – A new study from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, and sponsored by Brightcove (NASDAQ: BCOV), shows that B2B marketers want their content to drive stronger results, with a specific focus on engagement and conversion.
The study shows that 69% of B2B marketers rank creating more engaging/higher-quality content as their top initiative, with better website conversions right behind at 63%. According to the study, creating engaging content has been the top challenge for marketers year-over-year.
“As content marketing evolves, B2B marketers are learning that it’s not just about producing any type of content; more thought needs to go into it to be effective,” said Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and author of Epic Content Marketing. “Without a strategy it is difficult to determine the best direction, but our research shows B2B marketers are refining their thinking around content marketing and that will pay off in increased effectiveness.”
“It’s an interesting time in marketing as there’s a clear shift in thinking from if content marketing should be implemented to how we can do it better,” said Steve Rotter, Vice President of Digital Marketing Solutions at Brightcove. “With engagement and conversion as top initiatives, and video’s immense success in driving these two factors, Brightcove will be a key partner to companies looking to be successful in this next stage of content marketing.”
According to the study, 86% of B2B marketers use content marketing, but only 38% say they are effective at it. High percentages of B2B marketers cite the following goals for content marketing: brand awareness (84%), lead generation (83%), engagement (81%), and sales (75%). Steady with last year, B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics, with social media – other than blogs (92%) remaining the top tactic and marketers using an average of six platforms.
Other tactics include eNewsletters (83%), articles on a company’s website (81%), blogs (80%), in-person events (77%), case studies (77%), and videos (76%).
B2B marketers also use on average three paid advertising methods to distribute/promote content, with 80% using at least one. Of the paid advertising methods used, B2B marketers have the most confidence in search engine marketing (SEM – 52%). Next in terms of effectiveness is promoted posts (e.g. promoted Tweets – 41%), social ads (e.g. LinkedIn ads – 38%), and content discovery tools (e.g. Outbrain, Taboola, nRelate – 36%). And while 49% of marketers use traditional online banner ads, only 26% find them effective.
Other interesting findings from the report include:
● 70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they were one year ago
● Although the majority (83%) say they have a strategy, only 35% have it documented. The 35% who have documented their strategy are more effective in all aspects of content marketing than those who have not
● Infographics continue to grow in usage jumping to 62% this year from 51% last year
● Website traffic has been cited as the most often looked to content marketing metric for five consecutive years
● 55% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget in the next 12 months
● Google+ was the social media platform with the biggest rise in usage growing 9 percentage points to 64%
● 42% of B2B marketers publish new content multiple times per week or daily B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America reports on the findings gathered from the fifth annual content marketing survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs about content marketing. The research was sponsored by Brightcove. More than 1,800 B2B marketers in North America from diverse industries and a wide range of company sizes responded to the survey in July and August 2014.
Source: press release
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