2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Marketing Trends
by Holger Schulze
Sponsored by
NetProspex | Optify | Maximizer Software | Solution Publishing
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 1
Content marketing is a big buzz word in 2012. Most marketers will agree that the purpose of content marketing is to engage B2B buyers with compelling content to educate, inform, entertain and guide them along their buying journey. And while you want to help buyers make pragmatic and informed decisions, your ultimate goal is to persuade them to select your solution over competing alternatives.
But what’s behind the buzz? We conducted a survey with the 30,000+ 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 over 740 responses in less than 3 weeks and are happy to share the results with you.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!
INTRODUCTION
B2B buyer behavior has been changing dramatically over the last few years as buyers become more sophisticated, fi nd new ways to gather information online and via social media. 90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll fi nd you. *DemandGen Reports
Holger Schulze
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
1. Content marketing is expanding dramatically in terms of tactics, forms and volume of content.
• 84 percent of marketers say content production is on the rise
• Over half of the participants are using 10 or more formats and tactics that they deem “effective”
• These same respondents are spreading content creation across 6 different functional roles
2. Content is at the heart of B2B marketers top 3 goals—lead generation, market education and brand awareness.
3. The fastest growing content format is Infographics, whose use increased 1.5x from last year.
4. Biggest challenge for marketers is time and bandwidth to create content.
• 94 percent of B2B marketers create new content from scratch
5. Most B2B marketers are trying to measure content engagement.
• Web traffi c, views & downloads and lead quantity & quality are the top 3 measurements
SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS
2
Top-5 Trends in Content Marketing
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 3
#1 Lead Generation
For 68 percent of respondents, the top goal for content
marketing is lead generation. This is up from 62 percent
in last year’s survey. No major surprises here considering
that content marketing has emerged as a critical B2B
strategy to drive inbound lead generation (in response to
outbound B2B tactics becoming increasingly ineffective).
In other words, lead generation is the ultimate promise of
content marketing.
#2 Thought Leadership & Market Education
The next highest content marketing goal is thought
leadership and market education with 50 percent of
responses (up from 37 percent in last year’s survey). This
pattern is also consistent with the promise of content
marketing as a strategy to educate and infl uence buyer
behavior in the vendor’s favor.
#3 Brand Awareness
Brand awareness, for 39 percent of respondents
(up from 34 percent last year), has replaced last
year’s number three content marketing goal, lead
nurturing.
WHAT ARE THE GOALSOF CONTENT MARKETING?Q1
Lead generation
Thought leadership/ market education
Brand awareness
Lead nurturing
Customer acquisition
Sales
Website traffic
Customer loyalty/ retention
Social media engagement
Channel enablement
What are your top-3-goals for content marketing?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
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The leading content marketing tactics are case
studies (62 percent) followed by white papers /
ebooks (61 percent) and press releases (58 percent).
In contrast, the least commonly used content
marketing tactics are advertorials (11 percent),
community management & threading (12 percent),
and virtual events (18 percent).
WHAT CONTENT MARKETINGTACTICS DO YOU ACTIVELY USE? Q2
Case studies
White papers / ebooks
Press releases
e-newsletters
Blogging
Webinars
Videos
Social content
In-person events
Online articles
Slideware
Product demos
Infographics / images
Polling / research
Virtual / online events
Community management& threading
Advertorials
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
0% 20% 40% 60%
What tactics and forms of content marketing do you actively use?
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These content formats are considered most effective in engaging prospects and delivering message.
Marketers consider case studies most effective
(78 percent) — unchanged compared to last year’s
survey. This is also the most commonly used tactic
(see previous chart). White papers take the number
two spot with 73 percent (up from number three last
year), followed by live, in person events (72 percent
and down from the number two spot last year). The
least effective content formats are advertorials (18
percent), community management & threading (20
percent), and virtual events (31 percent). The fastest
rising content format are infographics with 43
percent compared to 28 percent last year.
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE CONTENTMARKETING TACTICS & FORMATS? Q3
Case studies
White papers / ebooks
In-person events
Online articles
Videos
Webinars
Product demos
e-newsletters
Blogging
Press releases
Slideware
Social content
Infographics / images
Polling / research
Virtual / online events
Community management& threading
Advertorials
How effective are the following content marketing tactics and formats?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Effective Ineffective I don’t use it
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So what are the ingredientsof successful content?
It starts with engaging and compelling
storytelling (81 percent), originality (52 percent)
and customized content (50 percent), followed
by professional writing (39 percent).
WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST IMPORTANTELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE CONTENT?Q4
Engaging and compelling storytelling
Originality
Custom content
Well edited copy
Professional writing
Written for SEO
Low cost
High volume production
What do you consider the three most important elements of effective content?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
6
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LinkedIn tops the list of social media platforms
with 85 percent (although this number is likely
skewed considering the majority of survey
respondents came from the B2B Technology
Marketing Community on LinkedIn). The runner
ups are Twitter (70 percent), Facebook (54
percent) and YouTube (53 percent).
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS DO YOU USE TO DELIVER CONTENT TO AUDIENCES?Q5
YouTube
Sideshare
Custom developedcommunities
Google+
Flickr
What social media plataforms do you use to deliver content to audiences?
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
7
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
The vast majority of B2B marketers create
content from scratch (94 percent). Other
tactics include curating third party content
(39 percent), re-using existing content (32
percent) and encouraging user-generated
content (30 percent).
Create content from scratch
Curate third party content
License / re-use existing content
Encourage user generated content
How do you create content?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
8
HOW DO YOU CREATE CONTENT?Q6twitter Linkedin
B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Web traffi c (64 percent) is the number one
metric used by marketers to measure the
success of content marketing. The next most
popular metric is views and downloads (59
percent), followed by lead quantity and lead
quality (tied with 52 percent each). Web traffic
Views / downloads
Lead quantity
Lead quality
Inquires
Opportunities
Sales / revenue
Customer feedback
Search rankings
Social media engagement
Inbound links
Share of conversation
Don’t measure
What metrics do you use to measure the successof your content marketing program?
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
9
WHAT METRICS DO YOU USE TO MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF YOUR CONTENT?Q7
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The next question is to find out where in
the organization content marketing strategy
is determined. In most companies
(55 percent), Corporate marketing sets
content strategy, followed by Product
marketing (38 percent), and the CEO /
President / Owner (37 percent) in smaller
companies that often don’t have a
dedicated marketing department. Corporate marketing
Product marketing
CEO / President / Owner
PR / Communications
Sales
Demand generation
Product management
Field marketing
External agency / Freelancer
Who determines content marketing strategy at your company?
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
WHO DETERMINES CONTENTMARKETING STRATEGY?Q8
10
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Corporate marketing is also the number
one creator of content in most companies
(55 percent), followed by Product marketing
(47 percent) and PR / Communications
(38 percent). About one in three companies
relies on external agencies and freelancers
to create content.
Corporate marketing
Product marketing
PR / Communications
External agency / Freelancer
Product management
CEO / President / Owner
Field marketing
Sales
Demand generation
Who creates content at your company?
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
WHO CREATES CONTENT?
11
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
The most outsourced form of content
are videos (33 percent). They are hard
to produce and most companies don’t
have the required capabilities in-house.
Videos are followed by white papers /
ebooks (32 percent) and case studies
(26 percent). In contrast, the least
outsourced tactics are product demos
(6 percent), community management &
threading (6 percent) and slideware /
presentations (6 percent).
Videos
White papers / ebooks
Case studies
Press releases
Infographics / images
Online articles
Webinars
Blogging
Polling / research
E-newsletters
Social content
AdvertorialsVirtual / online events
In-person eventsSlideware / presentationsCommunity management
& threadingProduct demos
We don’t outsource any
Which types of marketing content or tactis do you currently outsource,or expect to outsource in the future?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
WHAT CONTENT MARKETING TACTICSDO MARKETERS OUTSOURCE?Q10
12
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
For 51 percent of companies, the
corporate marketing function owns content
marketing funds, followed by the CEO /
President / Owner (35 percent) in smaller
companies. Product marketing owns the
content marketing budget in 22 percent of
companies. Now let’s look at who clearly
doesn’t own content marketing budgets
in most companies: external agencies and
freelancers (1 percent), sales (5 percent), and
product management (6 percent).
Who owns the content marketing budget?
0% 10% 20% 30%| 40% 50% 60%
Corporate marketing
CEO / President / Owner
Product marketing
PR / Communications
Field marketing
Demand generation
Product management
Sales
External agency / Freelancer
WHO OWNS THE CONTENTMARKETING BUDGET?Q11
13
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
One of the most telling indicators of
the increasing importance of content
marketing is budget allocation. Last year’s
survey showed that the most frequent
budget allocation was 20 percent. In
our latest survey, it has moved up to 30
percent indicating a strong shift toward
content marketing.
What percentage of your marketing budget is allocated to content marketing?
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%0%
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF BUDGET ISALLOCATED TO CONTENT MARKETING?Q12
14
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Now that we know that content marketing
spend is going up, let’s take a look at
what tactics receive the most budget.
The largest share of budget is allocated
to tradeshows and in-person events (23
percent). This is followed by the company
website (21 percent) and email marketing
(17 percent).
Tradeshows & in-person events
Company website
Print media
Social media
PPC / Paid search
PR
Webinar
Blog
Organic search
Online Display Ads
Online directories
What percentage of your budget do you allocate to content distribution channels.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
WHAT CONTENT MARKETINGTACTICS IS BUDGET SPENT ON?Q13
15
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Over 84 percent of marketers are
increasing content production over the
next 12 months, over 30 percent of them
significantly so. 14 percent of marketers
expect volume to stay flat. In contrast, last
year, over 71 percent of respondents saw
an increase in content production — looks
like the pace of content production is
picking up steam.How is your content production volume going to change
over the next 12 months?
53.0% | Increases
30.5% | Increases significantly
15.0% | Stays flat
1.5% | Decreases
0.0% | Decreases significantly
HOW IS CONTENT PRODUCTION VOLUME CHANGING OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?Q14
16
percent of marketers say content production is on the rise.
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS
Top ChallengesContent marketing is complex and requires a very
different approach and skill set compared to traditional
outbound marketing tactics. We asked our marketing
community what they consider the biggest content
marketing challenges – here are the results:
The number one challenge is having enough time and
bandwidth to create content (56 percent), replacing last
years top challenge: producing truly engaging content (53
percent). The next biggest content marketing challenge
is producing enough content to serve the needs of your
marketing programs (45 percent). This points to a lack
of resources in B2B marketing organizations, which is
confi rmed by 33 percent of respondents who selected
lack of talent as their marketing challenge. The least
pressing problem for marketers is poor content quality
(12 percent) tied with fi nding domain experts (12 percent).
WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST CONTENT MARKETING CHALLENGES?Q15
17
Time / bandwidth to create content
Producing truly engaging content
Producing enough content
Measuring resultsTalent to produce content
Getting content delivered tothe right audiences
No consistent content strategyCreating segment-specific content
Lack of budget to produce contentUnderstanding buyer personas
and decision stagesFinding enough targeted contacts
to offer content toLack of process
Buyers don’t want to register toconsume content
Buyers’ attention span too shortLocalizing content forinternational markets
Getting executive buy-in
Finding domain experts
Poor content quality
What are your biggest content marketing challenges?
0% 20% 40% 60%
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There are many different ways to slice and
organize marketing content. Should you
segment by product, pain point, buyer
persona, buying stage, or vertical – or all of
the above? Here is what the B2B marketing
community thinks:
The most popular segmentation dimension
is product category (50 percent), followed
by vertical (36 percent) and buyer persona
(28 percent).
The least popular segmentation dimension is
company size with 16 percent. And 20 percent
of marketers don’t systematically segment
content at all.
How do you segment and personalize your content?
60%
40%
20%
0%Product /
service categoryVertical Buyer
personaPain point Stage in
buying cycleWe don’t
systematicallysegment content
Companysize
HOW DO MARKETERS SEGMENTAND PERSONALIZE CONTENT?Q16
18
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B2B content marketing is not trivial. Consider
the multitude of market segments you serve,
with multiple products, each with different buyer
personas that influence the buying decision.
And each buying process comprises a number
of stages that require content to guide buyers
to the next stage.
If you wanted to address all possible
intersections of products, markets, buyer
personas, buying stages (and have multiple
white papers, webcasts, eBooks, blog posts
for each intersection) – you would quickly
be overwhelmed by the sheer amount and
complexity of content and associated
marketing programs.
MANAGING THE COMPLEXITY OF B2B CONTENT MARKETINGQ17
19
So what is a manageable number of segments, personas, and stages B2B marketers can support?
We asked our B2B marketing community
and the magic number is …
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One of the emerging trends related
to content marketing is marketing
automation as a way to get targeted
content in front of buying audiences. And
while adoption of marketing automation is
growing, only 26 percent of B2B marketers
are actively creating content to feed their
marketing automation campaign.
57 percent don’t use marketing
automation at all.
57.3% | Don’t use MA
25.5% | Actively create content to feed automated campaigns
19.0% | Sporadically use content for MA campaigns
How do you integrate content marketingwith marketing automation (MA)?
INTEGRATION WITHMARKETING AUTOMATIONQ18
20
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 21
The survey was completed by 740 marketers in 2012. Here is a detailed breakdown of the survey
participant demographics.
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
Fewer than 10
10-99
100-999
1,000-10,000
10,000+
What is the size of your company (employees)?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Marketing
Owner / CEO / President
Sales
Product Management
Consultant
What is your role in your company?
Engineering
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Manager
Director
Owner / CEO / President
VP
Specialist
What is your job title?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 35%30%
High-tech
Advertising / Marketing
Business services
Manufacturing
Telecommunication
What industry is your company in?
Software
Professional services
Helathcare
Financial services
Government
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
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B2B CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS | READ THE 2012 SURVEY RESULTS 22
We would like to thank our sponsors for supporting the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Report:
IDG Enterprise | www.idgenterprise.comIDG Enterprise brings together the unique brands (Computerworld, InfoWorld, Network World, CIO, DEMO, CSO, CIO Executive Council, ITworld, and CFOworld) to serve the information needs of our IT and security-focused audiences. By leveraging the strengths of each individual brand, while simultaneously harnessing their collective reach and audience affi nity, we provide market leadership and media best practices for our marketing customers to engage their customers across our portfolio.
NetProspex | www.netprospex.comNetProspex drives B2B lead generation by providing marketers with targeted prospect lists, data cleansing, and powerful analytics to understand their data.
Optify | www.optify.netOptify helps professional B2B marketers reach more buyers and generate more demand. Optify’s Inbound Marketing Suite brings together enterprise-class SEO, social marketing, website analytics and tools that B2B marketers need to increase awareness, infl uence buyers across social networks, and engage with prospects at the earliest point of their buyer’s journey.
SPONSORS
Maximizer Software | www.maximizer.comMaximizer 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 confi gurable for organizations in any industry, Maximizer CRM optimizes sales processes, enhances marketing initiatives, and, improves customer service to ultimately boost productivity and revenue.
Solution Publishing | www.solpub.comSolution Publishing utilizes proprietary semantic technologies to deliver exceptionally relevant content to its permission based B-to-B audiences. Technology professionals and business leaders value our IT Solution Journal as a customized research department they rely on to remain current and explore business solutions. Technology marketers use IT Solution Journal for high quality lead and demand generation.
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About the B2B TechnologyMarketing Community
With over 30,000 members, the B2B Technology
Marketing Community is the single largest LinkedIn group
exclusively focused on B2B technology marketing. This
group is for marketing professionals in B2B high-tech
industries to enable networking, sharing of ideas, best
practices and opportunities.
Bottom line: Content marketing is rapidly moving along the adoption
life cycle and best practices are rapidly emerging. I hope
you enjoyed this survey report and found the data points
helpful for your own content marketing efforts.
THANK YOU
Join the B2B TECHNOLOGYMARKETINGCOMMUNITY
on LinkedIn
TechnologyMarketing
Group Partner
Many thanks to everybody who participated in this survey.
If you are interested in co-sponsoring upcoming surveys, or creating your
own survey report, please contact Holger Schulze at [email protected].
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Our goal is to inform and educate B2B marketers
about new trends, share marketing ideas and
best practices, and make it easier for you to find
the information you care about to do your jobs
successfully.
Holger Schulze is a B2B technology marketing
executive delivering demand, brand awareness,
and revenue growth for high-tech companies.
A prolific blogger and online community builder,
Holger manages the B2B Technology Marketing
Community on LinkedIn with over 30,000+ members.
Holger Schulze is the author of the syndicated blog Everything Technology Marketing.
Follow Holger on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/holgerschulze
Subscribe to Holger’sTechnology Marketing Bloghttp://everythingtechnologymarketing.blogspot.com