Our annual content marketing research, with this report focusing on B2C marketers and their content marketing budgets and trends. New questions, an interesting twist to our research, and valuable budgets and trends as we head into 2017 planning season.
When it's time for that conversation to get buy-in on your content marketing ideas and initiatives, how do you proceed? Do you have all of the resources you need? The research and support to justify your programs? We're here to help. Download our "Mastering the Buy-In Conversation on Content Marketing: The Essential Starter Kit" now to help you. We've done the legwork so you can focus on your content marketing. Good luck, and let us know how else we can help.
REUPLOAD - Originally uploaded 27th February 2013, Slideshare wasn't previewing this because of some glitch, so I've re-uploaded. Hopefully this works.
I was recently asked to give a crash course in developing effective digital strategies. Because I have a contrary streak and think that digital isn't a separate entity, I presented what I think are the key principles in developing marketing strategies instead. It's an intro to strategy in a lot of ways, but hopefully it will be useful/interesting to a few people.
Greetings Marketers,
Welcome to B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. This is the companion report to the B2B research we released in September 2017. The data presented in both reports was generated from our eighth annual content marketing survey. One of our key observations this year is that while B2C marketers reported slightly higher levels of overall content marketing success compared with last year, there was a decrease among those who agreed their organization has realistic expectations about what content marketing can achieve. A documented content marketing strategy can help, as it sets expectations for what teams should prioritize; yet, only 38% of B2C marketers reported having one.
Our annual research has consistently shown that those who document their content marketing strategy get better results than those who don’t. Another important key to success is an efficient workflow process (page 4 shows how top-performing B2C marketers rate their project management flow and other distinguishing characteristics that set them apart from their peers). We hope these research findings will be helpful as you consider which content marketing priorities to focus on in the year ahead.
It's back! The annual Content Marketing Institute/Content Marketing research returns again to dissect content marketing benchmarks, budgets and trends for B2B marketers in North America.
In this on-demand webinar, SilverTech’s Principal Strategist, Samantha Maltais, and Content Strategist, Ian Hughes, review the results of our industry-wide State of Digital Marketing survey. They discuss the main challenges and opportunities marketers face and share what they believe will be the most effective digital strategies of 2018.
FAIRY TALE: CONTENT IS AN ART AND RELIES ON GUT INSTINCT FACT: SUCCESSFUL CONTENT IS DATA DRIVEN AND SEMANTIC KEYWORD RIDDEN 03
How to Get Data Driven WITH YOUR CONTENT MARKETING
KEYWORD PLANNER IS YOUR FRIEND • Enter words around your company or service • Enter words around your competitors or enemies • Don’t be afraid of two or three word phrases • Find Search Volume
FIND WORDS THAT HAVE VOLUME
TWEET OF THE DAY If no one is looking for your content, then no one will read your content.
GET KEYWORD IDEAS
USE THESE IDEAS TO CREATE BLOG TOPICS
JUST DON’T USE THE TYPOS
GOOGLE ‘HOW TO’ + ‘KEYWORD’ IN INCOGNITO
PREDICTIVE SEARCH YOUR TOPICS
SELECT A TOPIC BASED ON YOUR SEARCH • Read the top 3 most recent posts • Write 3 things that suck about each of them
SELECT A TOPIC BASED ON YOUR SEARCH • Read the top 3 most recent posts • Write 3 things that suck about each of them • Think of 3 ways to make your post better • Make it 10X better than those posts • Use the keywords and semantics from earlier • Distribute it like crazy!
TWEET OF THE DAY Google loves great content, but it ranks content it can find no matter how people search for it.
Content Marketing is Worthless if it Doesn’t Move the Needle
AGENCY
CLIENT
Grow traffic, generate leads, and increase revenue . . .
Improve Current Process and Content
BLOG
ITALIAN WAS FIRST LANGUAGE
OUR COPYWRITER FIXED THAT
Redevelop Content Strategy to Attract New Customers
CHUPAMOBILE Flappy Bird The Flappy Miley Clone “Flappy bird ruined everything.” Paolo de Santis Founder, Chupamobile
App re-skinners were ruining the site and causing havoc in the app store
APPRENEURS • Want to build a business or an app • Do not have development experience • Development shops are expensive • Freelance Mobile Devs are flaky
CONDUCT KEYWORD AND SEARCH RESEARCH
BLOG TOPICS • Hiring a mobile dev • Teach people how to launch apps • How to make money from apps • Build apps with no code
MATCH BLOG POSTS TO EBOOK DOWNLOAD CONTENT
BUILD LANDING PAGES
LOTS OF THEM
MAKE IT EASY TO BECOME A LEAD • CTA on bottom of blog posts • CTA on sidebar • Exit intent pop-up
CREATE CONTENT CALENDAR
Launch Posts and Distribute Like a Mofo
DISTRIBUTION PROCESS FOR EVERY POST
NETWORK AND LINK
BUILD AN OUTREACH LIST
LINKEDIN IS AMAZING
AGGREGATORS HELP!
TWEET OF THE DAY If content gets published on the internet with no one around to read it, does it still get found19% INCREASE IN ORGANIC IN 3 MONTHS
696 LEADS IN 3 MONTHS
44% CONVERSION RATE
Has Leads, Will Nurture 3.4
NURTURE LEADS TO CREATE CUSTOMERS • Downloaded guide • Introduction to Chupa email • How it works email • Chupa success story email
TWEET OF THE DAY Growth hacking isn’t one tactic; it is how you string tactics together and automate them. That’s how you create growth!
For three years we’ve looked at B2B content marketing trends, and this year, we are excited to bring you these compelling B2C findings.
According to our research, both B2B and B2C marketers are still struggling with the effectiveness of their content marketing. So while we are happy that more marketers are engaging in content marketing to attract and retain customers, we also realize we have a ways to go.
When it's time for that conversation to get buy-in on your content marketing ideas and initiatives, how do you proceed? Do you have all of the resources you need? The research and support to justify your programs? We're here to help. Download our "Mastering the Buy-In Conversation on Content Marketing: The Essential Starter Kit" now to help you. We've done the legwork so you can focus on your content marketing. Good luck, and let us know how else we can help.
REUPLOAD - Originally uploaded 27th February 2013, Slideshare wasn't previewing this because of some glitch, so I've re-uploaded. Hopefully this works.
I was recently asked to give a crash course in developing effective digital strategies. Because I have a contrary streak and think that digital isn't a separate entity, I presented what I think are the key principles in developing marketing strategies instead. It's an intro to strategy in a lot of ways, but hopefully it will be useful/interesting to a few people.
Greetings Marketers,
Welcome to B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. This is the companion report to the B2B research we released in September 2017. The data presented in both reports was generated from our eighth annual content marketing survey. One of our key observations this year is that while B2C marketers reported slightly higher levels of overall content marketing success compared with last year, there was a decrease among those who agreed their organization has realistic expectations about what content marketing can achieve. A documented content marketing strategy can help, as it sets expectations for what teams should prioritize; yet, only 38% of B2C marketers reported having one.
Our annual research has consistently shown that those who document their content marketing strategy get better results than those who don’t. Another important key to success is an efficient workflow process (page 4 shows how top-performing B2C marketers rate their project management flow and other distinguishing characteristics that set them apart from their peers). We hope these research findings will be helpful as you consider which content marketing priorities to focus on in the year ahead.
It's back! The annual Content Marketing Institute/Content Marketing research returns again to dissect content marketing benchmarks, budgets and trends for B2B marketers in North America.
In this on-demand webinar, SilverTech’s Principal Strategist, Samantha Maltais, and Content Strategist, Ian Hughes, review the results of our industry-wide State of Digital Marketing survey. They discuss the main challenges and opportunities marketers face and share what they believe will be the most effective digital strategies of 2018.
FAIRY TALE: CONTENT IS AN ART AND RELIES ON GUT INSTINCT FACT: SUCCESSFUL CONTENT IS DATA DRIVEN AND SEMANTIC KEYWORD RIDDEN 03
How to Get Data Driven WITH YOUR CONTENT MARKETING
KEYWORD PLANNER IS YOUR FRIEND • Enter words around your company or service • Enter words around your competitors or enemies • Don’t be afraid of two or three word phrases • Find Search Volume
FIND WORDS THAT HAVE VOLUME
TWEET OF THE DAY If no one is looking for your content, then no one will read your content.
GET KEYWORD IDEAS
USE THESE IDEAS TO CREATE BLOG TOPICS
JUST DON’T USE THE TYPOS
GOOGLE ‘HOW TO’ + ‘KEYWORD’ IN INCOGNITO
PREDICTIVE SEARCH YOUR TOPICS
SELECT A TOPIC BASED ON YOUR SEARCH • Read the top 3 most recent posts • Write 3 things that suck about each of them
SELECT A TOPIC BASED ON YOUR SEARCH • Read the top 3 most recent posts • Write 3 things that suck about each of them • Think of 3 ways to make your post better • Make it 10X better than those posts • Use the keywords and semantics from earlier • Distribute it like crazy!
TWEET OF THE DAY Google loves great content, but it ranks content it can find no matter how people search for it.
Content Marketing is Worthless if it Doesn’t Move the Needle
AGENCY
CLIENT
Grow traffic, generate leads, and increase revenue . . .
Improve Current Process and Content
BLOG
ITALIAN WAS FIRST LANGUAGE
OUR COPYWRITER FIXED THAT
Redevelop Content Strategy to Attract New Customers
CHUPAMOBILE Flappy Bird The Flappy Miley Clone “Flappy bird ruined everything.” Paolo de Santis Founder, Chupamobile
App re-skinners were ruining the site and causing havoc in the app store
APPRENEURS • Want to build a business or an app • Do not have development experience • Development shops are expensive • Freelance Mobile Devs are flaky
CONDUCT KEYWORD AND SEARCH RESEARCH
BLOG TOPICS • Hiring a mobile dev • Teach people how to launch apps • How to make money from apps • Build apps with no code
MATCH BLOG POSTS TO EBOOK DOWNLOAD CONTENT
BUILD LANDING PAGES
LOTS OF THEM
MAKE IT EASY TO BECOME A LEAD • CTA on bottom of blog posts • CTA on sidebar • Exit intent pop-up
CREATE CONTENT CALENDAR
Launch Posts and Distribute Like a Mofo
DISTRIBUTION PROCESS FOR EVERY POST
NETWORK AND LINK
BUILD AN OUTREACH LIST
LINKEDIN IS AMAZING
AGGREGATORS HELP!
TWEET OF THE DAY If content gets published on the internet with no one around to read it, does it still get found19% INCREASE IN ORGANIC IN 3 MONTHS
696 LEADS IN 3 MONTHS
44% CONVERSION RATE
Has Leads, Will Nurture 3.4
NURTURE LEADS TO CREATE CUSTOMERS • Downloaded guide • Introduction to Chupa email • How it works email • Chupa success story email
TWEET OF THE DAY Growth hacking isn’t one tactic; it is how you string tactics together and automate them. That’s how you create growth!
For three years we’ve looked at B2B content marketing trends, and this year, we are excited to bring you these compelling B2C findings.
According to our research, both B2B and B2C marketers are still struggling with the effectiveness of their content marketing. So while we are happy that more marketers are engaging in content marketing to attract and retain customers, we also realize we have a ways to go.
A simple content strategy that works for any brand: Plan > Create > Promote > Measure
Presented at Redi Social, Ahmedabad on Social Media Day 30.06.2018.
Thank you for your interest in Content Marketing in the UK 2017: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends.
The annual content marketing survey, from which the results of this report were generated, revealed many new insights this year. We asked more questions about content marketing strategy, factors that in uence content marketing success, marketers’ attitudes about content creation and content marketing in general, and much more.
We also asked respondents about their commitment level to content marketing. To see the types of content marketing activities that those who are more committed are prioritizing, see the chart on page 4. Enjoy!
Delighting your advocates can become a sustainable competitive advantage—if you’ve got the skills to make it happen. Bring your swim trunks, because we’ll be diving into how to motivate your advocates to help you: Increase your brand’s reach and market presence, fill your pipeline with warm leads and close deals faster, and boost customer engagement, retention and account growth.
B2B event sponsorship by the numbers (infographic)Maayan Levy
Since we started working on Sponsez, we have been reading a lot about sponsorship. Probably more than all of us ever read together in 12 years of school. There is so much information, so we decided to follow the great trend of info-graphics and share with you important insights about the industry we are in.
Read. Like? Share!
For more about why Sponsez is great for sponsors and event organizers contact us.
Welcome to the sixth annual Content Marketing in Australia: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report. One of the most striking findings was the increased percentage of Australian content marketers who have become more focused on building an audience (85%) compared with last year’s survey results (69%). This finding was not unique to Australia; the Content Marketing Institute team observed it among all groups of content marketers studied. Building a subscriber base is a key content marketing goal. However, what you do with that list is equally as important. The quality of content you create (does it speak to your audience’s wants and needs?) … how efficiently you produce it … whether it’s credible … how/when/where you distribute it – these are just a handful of factors that impact overall content marketing success. And let us not forget the
importance of a documented strategy and a strong commitment to the approach (see page 4 for a glimpse at commitment’s influence). We wish you success with using content marketing to provide meaningful, long-term value for your audience – and business results for your organisation. If you need educational resources, please let us know.
B2B Content Marketing 2018 - Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends - North America MarketingProfs
Our annual content marketing research with new insights useful for 2018 budget planning and benchmarketing. This new report focuses on business-to-business (B2B) marketers and their content marketing benchmarks, budgets, and trends.
Google Analytics: Setting Up Your Content Hub to Measure Conversions (Part 1)NewsCred
Google Analytics (GA) provides very powerful analytics tools right out of the box. However, most marketers are not familiar enough with what those tools can do, and are therefore not using them to their full advantage.
Greetings Technology Marketers,
Welcome to our annual Technology Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report.
I’m pleased to announce the percentage of technology marketers that reported high levels of overall content marketing
success increased from 24% last year to 31% this year—another 50% reported moderate success. Like last year, nearly 70%
said their organization is much/somewhat more successful with content marketing compared with one year ago.
For a glimpse into how the top-performing content marketers operate, see the chart on page 4. You’ll note that these
marketers report high levels of commitment; document their content marketing strategy; are focused on building audiences;
and are given ample time to produce content marketing results, among other distinguishing factors.
Technology is rapidly changing the processes around content marketing. We look forward to watching how things progress
and reporting back to you again next year.
There is a huge opportunity for marketers to get more from the content they’re developing. That’s the conclusion the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) research team came to after
conducting its first-ever content management and strategy survey.
Our team surveyed 411 marketers from the CMI audience to learn how they manage content within their organizations. Read on to see the results.
How to Build Your B2B Marketing Empire From the Ground UpMarketingProfs
As we celebrate and reflect on our 10th anniversary at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, let's look to the future with hope and excitement. Let's learn from what has worked, and abandon what hasn't. Let's challenge one another to achieve epic results. Let's build to last.
A Guide to Social Media Marketing MeasurementMark Schaefer
Stuck on how to measure your social media marketing efforts? Here's practical advice from a leading marketing authority that may help you move forward.
2nd Annual Killer Content Awards: Honoring The World's Best B2B Content Marke...G3 Communications
Sharing case studies and behind the scenes looks at the design and execution of the cutting edge content marketing programs. The Killer Content Awards features industry leaders in areas such as:
• Social media and targeted content marketing;
• Educational content that informs and inspires buyers;
• Linking content to measurable, revenue-focused results;
• Using video and interactive content in new and creative ways;
• Deploying content that drives successful, cross-channel campaigns.
Speakers:
• Andrew Gaffney, Demand Gen Report
• Alicia Fiorletta, Channel Marketer Report
SEMPO KC Presentation - It May Have to Be YouBrody Dorland
In late October 2016, I had the opportunity to present on the topic of "Building a Better Process" for the Kansas City Chapter of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO). With a room evenly split between paid and organic search marketing pros, it was a bit of a challenge for me to put my SEO hat back on (it's been a while) and think about the process that these folks execute every day.
Thankfully, the search marketing world has converged and silo walls are being torn down. The days of a "search team" or "the guy who does search" are numbered. In many organizations, search is an integrated part of the strategic conversation and the practices of keyword research and optimization are becoming important components of the content process.
That being said, there's more work to be done. Many companies aren't there yet. Perhaps those companies just need to understand why they should be making search marketing a bigger priority. And perhaps they need some guidance as to how to integrate search marketing practices into their current process. That's my focus with this presentation. Enjoy!
When Content Marketing Institute (CMI) first reported on manufacturing in 2014, we noted that manufacturers were later to adopt content marketing than other industries we studied. They’ve certainly come a long way since then.
As you’ll see in this report—based on the results of our 10th annual content marketing survey—manufacturing marketers have become more strategic with their content marketing and are feeling less challenged with communicating complex content. Many are reporting success with their overall approach to content marketing. The ability to craft content for different audiences across various stages of the buyer’s journey—and distribute that content with precision—will be important to continued success in 2020.
Many organizations struggle with content—the surprising volume needed, the lack of a central strategy, the huge investment in time and resources, inconsistent quality or voice, cross-silo logistics, new channel paralysis, or the seeming lack of attributable ROI. When harnessed correctly, however, and successfully connecting content to business and brand goals, content can be a valuable working asset build relevancy and grow your business.
2016 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends ReportMarketingProfs
For six years, MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute have put together this report on how marketers use content and how they develop content strategies (if at all). Dive in to learn more about the state of content marketing in B2B organizations!
Welcome to our annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report. We’re excited to present you with the findings from our latest content marketing survey.
Content marketing has changed a lot since we launched this research nearly a decade ago. We marketers are still focused on content creation, but our thinking about the audiences for whom we create that content has evolved. So, too, have the ways we distribute, measure, and improve upon our content marketing. Technology has played a big role, along with the knowledge we’ve gained through our content marketing experiences.
As you’ll see in this report, some organizations are more developed than others with their content marketing. But you’ll also recognize your own practices reflected in many of the findings. Where does your company stand? What do you need to get to where you want to be? If you need help, let us know!
While there’s a lot you could be doing, sometimes it’s hard to know which tracks to start, stop, or pause. To help you find the right mix to meet your marketing goals, we consolidated responses from the 2015 Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends research report section — “Which content marketing initiatives are you working on now, and in the next 12 months?” We broke out the results as follows:
• By priority
• By business type (B2B, B2C and nonprofit)
• By geography (North America, Australia, United Kingdom)
Part I covers two “playlists”:
Internal Processes and Content Marketing Strategy Tactics. From channels to platforms to audience segmentation, learn how you can best establish your content marketing strategy and structure your team internally for more efficient processes.
Part II: Playlist 3 (coming soon) is where you can mix things up a bit with different Execution Tactics. See how to create and deliver the best content to meet your business objectives. While some geographies and business types have similar priorities, others are finding their own unique beats — and the differences may surprise you. We hope you find the following findings insightful and inspirational as you make your plans for the year ahead.
Enjoy!
Joe Pulizzi
Welcome to our yearly report on the content marketing practices of business-to-business (B2B) technology content marketers in North America. Here you’ll see how technology marketers replied to our sixth annual content marketing survey, and how the results compare with the 2015 ndings.
A new question about content marketing maturity level revealed that 71% of technology marketers who say their organizations are e ective at content marketing are in the “sophisticated/mature” phase, indicating that success grows with experience.
2015 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends for North AmericaMarketingProfs
This is the fifth year that MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute have put together this report on how marketers use content in their marketing mix. With changes in the industry, the report may look a little different than you remember. Dive in, and enjoy!
Secrets to building an actionable audienceMark Schaefer
14 experts reveal their secrets to building an actionable audience. Highlights from The Content Code, including Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott, Anne Handley, Chris Brogan and Seth Godin.
A simple content strategy that works for any brand: Plan > Create > Promote > Measure
Presented at Redi Social, Ahmedabad on Social Media Day 30.06.2018.
Thank you for your interest in Content Marketing in the UK 2017: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends.
The annual content marketing survey, from which the results of this report were generated, revealed many new insights this year. We asked more questions about content marketing strategy, factors that in uence content marketing success, marketers’ attitudes about content creation and content marketing in general, and much more.
We also asked respondents about their commitment level to content marketing. To see the types of content marketing activities that those who are more committed are prioritizing, see the chart on page 4. Enjoy!
Delighting your advocates can become a sustainable competitive advantage—if you’ve got the skills to make it happen. Bring your swim trunks, because we’ll be diving into how to motivate your advocates to help you: Increase your brand’s reach and market presence, fill your pipeline with warm leads and close deals faster, and boost customer engagement, retention and account growth.
B2B event sponsorship by the numbers (infographic)Maayan Levy
Since we started working on Sponsez, we have been reading a lot about sponsorship. Probably more than all of us ever read together in 12 years of school. There is so much information, so we decided to follow the great trend of info-graphics and share with you important insights about the industry we are in.
Read. Like? Share!
For more about why Sponsez is great for sponsors and event organizers contact us.
Welcome to the sixth annual Content Marketing in Australia: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report. One of the most striking findings was the increased percentage of Australian content marketers who have become more focused on building an audience (85%) compared with last year’s survey results (69%). This finding was not unique to Australia; the Content Marketing Institute team observed it among all groups of content marketers studied. Building a subscriber base is a key content marketing goal. However, what you do with that list is equally as important. The quality of content you create (does it speak to your audience’s wants and needs?) … how efficiently you produce it … whether it’s credible … how/when/where you distribute it – these are just a handful of factors that impact overall content marketing success. And let us not forget the
importance of a documented strategy and a strong commitment to the approach (see page 4 for a glimpse at commitment’s influence). We wish you success with using content marketing to provide meaningful, long-term value for your audience – and business results for your organisation. If you need educational resources, please let us know.
B2B Content Marketing 2018 - Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends - North America MarketingProfs
Our annual content marketing research with new insights useful for 2018 budget planning and benchmarketing. This new report focuses on business-to-business (B2B) marketers and their content marketing benchmarks, budgets, and trends.
Google Analytics: Setting Up Your Content Hub to Measure Conversions (Part 1)NewsCred
Google Analytics (GA) provides very powerful analytics tools right out of the box. However, most marketers are not familiar enough with what those tools can do, and are therefore not using them to their full advantage.
Greetings Technology Marketers,
Welcome to our annual Technology Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report.
I’m pleased to announce the percentage of technology marketers that reported high levels of overall content marketing
success increased from 24% last year to 31% this year—another 50% reported moderate success. Like last year, nearly 70%
said their organization is much/somewhat more successful with content marketing compared with one year ago.
For a glimpse into how the top-performing content marketers operate, see the chart on page 4. You’ll note that these
marketers report high levels of commitment; document their content marketing strategy; are focused on building audiences;
and are given ample time to produce content marketing results, among other distinguishing factors.
Technology is rapidly changing the processes around content marketing. We look forward to watching how things progress
and reporting back to you again next year.
There is a huge opportunity for marketers to get more from the content they’re developing. That’s the conclusion the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) research team came to after
conducting its first-ever content management and strategy survey.
Our team surveyed 411 marketers from the CMI audience to learn how they manage content within their organizations. Read on to see the results.
How to Build Your B2B Marketing Empire From the Ground UpMarketingProfs
As we celebrate and reflect on our 10th anniversary at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, let's look to the future with hope and excitement. Let's learn from what has worked, and abandon what hasn't. Let's challenge one another to achieve epic results. Let's build to last.
A Guide to Social Media Marketing MeasurementMark Schaefer
Stuck on how to measure your social media marketing efforts? Here's practical advice from a leading marketing authority that may help you move forward.
2nd Annual Killer Content Awards: Honoring The World's Best B2B Content Marke...G3 Communications
Sharing case studies and behind the scenes looks at the design and execution of the cutting edge content marketing programs. The Killer Content Awards features industry leaders in areas such as:
• Social media and targeted content marketing;
• Educational content that informs and inspires buyers;
• Linking content to measurable, revenue-focused results;
• Using video and interactive content in new and creative ways;
• Deploying content that drives successful, cross-channel campaigns.
Speakers:
• Andrew Gaffney, Demand Gen Report
• Alicia Fiorletta, Channel Marketer Report
SEMPO KC Presentation - It May Have to Be YouBrody Dorland
In late October 2016, I had the opportunity to present on the topic of "Building a Better Process" for the Kansas City Chapter of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO). With a room evenly split between paid and organic search marketing pros, it was a bit of a challenge for me to put my SEO hat back on (it's been a while) and think about the process that these folks execute every day.
Thankfully, the search marketing world has converged and silo walls are being torn down. The days of a "search team" or "the guy who does search" are numbered. In many organizations, search is an integrated part of the strategic conversation and the practices of keyword research and optimization are becoming important components of the content process.
That being said, there's more work to be done. Many companies aren't there yet. Perhaps those companies just need to understand why they should be making search marketing a bigger priority. And perhaps they need some guidance as to how to integrate search marketing practices into their current process. That's my focus with this presentation. Enjoy!
When Content Marketing Institute (CMI) first reported on manufacturing in 2014, we noted that manufacturers were later to adopt content marketing than other industries we studied. They’ve certainly come a long way since then.
As you’ll see in this report—based on the results of our 10th annual content marketing survey—manufacturing marketers have become more strategic with their content marketing and are feeling less challenged with communicating complex content. Many are reporting success with their overall approach to content marketing. The ability to craft content for different audiences across various stages of the buyer’s journey—and distribute that content with precision—will be important to continued success in 2020.
Many organizations struggle with content—the surprising volume needed, the lack of a central strategy, the huge investment in time and resources, inconsistent quality or voice, cross-silo logistics, new channel paralysis, or the seeming lack of attributable ROI. When harnessed correctly, however, and successfully connecting content to business and brand goals, content can be a valuable working asset build relevancy and grow your business.
2016 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends ReportMarketingProfs
For six years, MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute have put together this report on how marketers use content and how they develop content strategies (if at all). Dive in to learn more about the state of content marketing in B2B organizations!
Welcome to our annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report. We’re excited to present you with the findings from our latest content marketing survey.
Content marketing has changed a lot since we launched this research nearly a decade ago. We marketers are still focused on content creation, but our thinking about the audiences for whom we create that content has evolved. So, too, have the ways we distribute, measure, and improve upon our content marketing. Technology has played a big role, along with the knowledge we’ve gained through our content marketing experiences.
As you’ll see in this report, some organizations are more developed than others with their content marketing. But you’ll also recognize your own practices reflected in many of the findings. Where does your company stand? What do you need to get to where you want to be? If you need help, let us know!
While there’s a lot you could be doing, sometimes it’s hard to know which tracks to start, stop, or pause. To help you find the right mix to meet your marketing goals, we consolidated responses from the 2015 Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends research report section — “Which content marketing initiatives are you working on now, and in the next 12 months?” We broke out the results as follows:
• By priority
• By business type (B2B, B2C and nonprofit)
• By geography (North America, Australia, United Kingdom)
Part I covers two “playlists”:
Internal Processes and Content Marketing Strategy Tactics. From channels to platforms to audience segmentation, learn how you can best establish your content marketing strategy and structure your team internally for more efficient processes.
Part II: Playlist 3 (coming soon) is where you can mix things up a bit with different Execution Tactics. See how to create and deliver the best content to meet your business objectives. While some geographies and business types have similar priorities, others are finding their own unique beats — and the differences may surprise you. We hope you find the following findings insightful and inspirational as you make your plans for the year ahead.
Enjoy!
Joe Pulizzi
Welcome to our yearly report on the content marketing practices of business-to-business (B2B) technology content marketers in North America. Here you’ll see how technology marketers replied to our sixth annual content marketing survey, and how the results compare with the 2015 ndings.
A new question about content marketing maturity level revealed that 71% of technology marketers who say their organizations are e ective at content marketing are in the “sophisticated/mature” phase, indicating that success grows with experience.
2015 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends for North AmericaMarketingProfs
This is the fifth year that MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute have put together this report on how marketers use content in their marketing mix. With changes in the industry, the report may look a little different than you remember. Dive in, and enjoy!
Secrets to building an actionable audienceMark Schaefer
14 experts reveal their secrets to building an actionable audience. Highlights from The Content Code, including Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott, Anne Handley, Chris Brogan and Seth Godin.
3 Ingredients to Spice Up Your Content MarketingSemrush
Spice up your content marketing with just 3 ingredients! Discover how the art of rhetoric can help you to develop, commission and produce more effective, persuasive and exceptional content in a repeatable workflow.
In this presentation by Jonathan Crossfield, you'll discover:
- The three ingredients of exceptional and persuasive content
- How to generate original and powerful content ideas
- A five-step workflow from Ancient Greece that still works today!
You can also watch video version of the presentation here: www.semrush.com/webinars/3-ingredients-to-spice-up-your-content-marketing/
In these slides Gianluca Fiorelli presents how to create Buyer Personas, what tools and methods to follow for collecting qualitative and quantitative data, how to create an editorial calendar and project campaigns that can effectively target the Buyer Personas we individuated.
Using Analytics To Solve The Right ProblemsHiten Shah
The challenge for designers is how to measure their design work to ensure that it’s solving the right problems—before the designs are implemented. Analytics are a powerful tool. But if you don’t understand the “why” behind the data, it’s not going to do you any good. This presentation is a crash course in how to measure the success of your work. You’ll learn how to think like a scientist, using a hypothesis-driven approach to design, and creating successful tests to help you improve your work through focused iteration.
The Art of Visual Content and the Science That Makes it Convert Uberflip
From infographics to presentations to eBooks, visual content can present complex ideas in a format that’s easy to digest and hard to ignore.
These highly engaging content assets not only generate awareness for your company in a crowded internet, but when delivered in the right content experience, can also transform that engagement into conversions.
In this presentation, we explore:
- Key characteristics of highly compelling visual content.
- How to create killer infographics, presentations and more.
- Visual content creation tips for both small businesses and large organizations.
- How to optimize the content experience to generate leads from your visual content.
Choosing easier. How businesses can improve the experience of choosing.TED Talks
Less is more. One of the biggest problems in today's world is choice overload. We all want customized experiences and products — but when faced with 700 options, consumers freeze up. Sheena Iyengar demonstrates how businesses (and others) can improve the experience of choosing.
Communication and presentation tips for do-gooders, created by Dr. Carmen Simon and Bruce Kasanoff. Learn more at http://www.memzy.com/ and http://kasanoff.com/
How to Conversion Rate Optimize Like There's No TomorrowMichael Stricker
CRO Conversion Rate Optimization can be life and death for your web revenue. Learn 4 essential approaches to win competitively, bring targeted new prospects, diagnose sickly performance, and win with PageSpeed.
Link Building in 2017 - How to Build Links and Not Get Penalized by Google!Razvan Gavrilas
Since the latest Real-time Google Penguin 4.0 everyone is wondering how to move forward with their link building strategy.
In this presentation, I'm sharing unique tips, creative strategies and case studies on how to Organically Build Links in a Post-Penguin Era.
Applying the SEO Tips and Strategies presented here will increase your Google Rankings - Safe and Fast!
Learn step-by-step how you can dramatically increase your audience of subscribers, leads, customers and fans by adding a few simple (and free) types of marketing strategies to the mix.
Tips, Tools and Templates To Build Your Content Marketing StrategyMichael Brenner
Are you looking for help to develop your content marketing strategy? In this presentation delivered at Content Marketing World, I'm offering all the tips, tools and templates you need to go from wherever you are in your content marketing journey to being a world class content brand.
The latest data for internet, social media, and mobile use around the world in Q3 2017. For other reports in We Are Social & Hootsuite's ongoing Global Digital series, see https://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/presentations
Rand's presentation from BCAMA covering the shifts in search engines and user behavior that have caused SEO tactics of years past to fail in the modern era.
2017 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and TrendsMarketingProfs
The seventh annual B2B content marketing report is here. Sponsored by Brightcove, this report shows where B2B marketers will spend their budget, how much budget businesses are allocating to content marketing efforts, and what kind of strategies will see in 2017.
Welcome to the
7th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North
America
report. We’ve made quite a few changes to our annual survey this year to reflect the
maturing content marketing industry.
This year’s research paints a brighter picture than the last few years, indicating that content
marketing is alive and well! Content marketers are on track—with 62% reporting that their
organizations are much more or somewhat more successful with their overall content marketing
approach compared with one year ago.
Like last year, those who are further along with their approach are the most successful, while
the vast majority of the least successful are in the young/early phases of content marketing.
With time, a documented strategy, creativity, meaningful goals and metrics, a willingness to
experiment, and perhaps most importantly,
a commitment to content marketin
g, those
marketers will succeed.
Please watch for continuing editorial coverage of our research findings throughout 2017.
We hope you will find the insights useful as you prepare for the year ahead
Welcome to the 7th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North
America report. We’ve made quite a few changes to our annual survey this year to reflect the
maturing content marketing industry.
This year’s research paints a brighter picture than the last few years, indicating that content
marketing is alive and well! Content marketers are on track—with 62% reporting that their
organizations are much more or somewhat more successful with their overall content marketing
approach compared with one year ago.
Like last year, those who are further along with their approach are the most successful, while
the vast majority of the least successful are in the young/early phases of content marketing.
With time, a documented strategy, creativity, meaningful goals and metrics, a willingness to
experiment, and perhaps most importantly, a commitment to content marketing, those
marketers will succeed.
Please watch for continuing editorial coverage of our research findings throughout 2017.
We hope you will find the insights useful as you prepare for the year ahead
B2C Content Marketing 2018 - Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends - North America MarketingProfs
Our annual content marketing research with new insights useful for 2018 budget planning and benchmarketing. This new report focuses on business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers and their content marketing benchmarks, budgets, and trends.
Greetings Marketers,
Welcome to B2B Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. Our latest research indicates B2B marketers are finding content marketing success as they explore ways to work more creatively and build their audiences.
Content marketing is no longer the shiny new object. Those who have caught on are no longer asking “should we do this,” but rather “how do we really dig in and get results?” One of the most convincing pieces of evidence of this maturation? We saw an 18% year-over-year increase in respondents who say they are focused on using content marketing to build their audience (one or more subscriber bases). And that’s what differentiates content marketing from other forms of marketing – its intent is to offer valuable information so people want to hear from your business ... so they subscribe to your content because they are interested in it.
Read on for all the findings from our annual survey and consider how your organization stacks up against your peers. To take your content marketing to the next level, check out the resources on the last page of this report.
The most wanted content marketing research fruitful for every B2B marketer to effectively develop a budget plan and benchmarking strategies. Full insights in to leading B2B marketer's budgets, trends and benchmarks.
Hello, Content Marketers,
It is our pleasure to present the fifth annual Content Marketing in Australia: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report.
As Australian marketers continue to grow in experience and content marketing maturity, so too does their overall success with the approach.
In addition, many who are just starting out appear to have the right idea: 71% whose companies are in the young/ first steps phase agree that their company is focused more on building long-term relationships than on getting quick results from content marketing.
Our hope is that your company views content marketing as an opportunity to build an audience and create ongoing value—versus just another method to generate leads and sales. The right vision—along with a documented content marketing strategy and a strong commitment to content marketing—are the first steps toward tangible business results.
Business-to-Business manufacturing marketers have made great progress over the last year with content marketing. That’s one of the key findings in the Manufacturing Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report released by Content Marketing Institute, a UBM company, along with MarketingProfs. The report is sponsored by IEEE Engineering360 Media Solutions.
Welcome to our annual report on the content marketing practices of technology marketers. This report focuses on the North American technology marketers who participated in our seventh annual content marketing survey. New for this year, we asked technology marketers about their success with content marketing:
• 24% said their organization’s overall approach to content marketing is “extremely” or “very” successful
• 64% said that compared with one year ago, their organizations are “much more” or “somewhat more” successful with content marketing
• 92% of those reporting increased success attributed that success to doing a better job with content creation.
Seventy-four percent said their organization always or frequently prioritizes delivering content quality over content quantity. That stat is even higher (92%) among the top-performing technology marketers (see the chart on page 4 for our definition of a “top performer”).
Read on for more insights into how your peers are approaching their content marketing—and where they are heading over the next 12 months.
Welcome to our fifth annual report on the content marketing practices of manufacturers. Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has been conducting annual
content marketing research since 2010, but because our data indicated that manufacturers were slower than other industries to adopt content marketing,
we didn’t begin producing a manufacturing report until 2014.
It’s been exciting to watch more and more manufacturers launch content marketing initiatives with each passing year. And for those that are just starting
out – or are at a standstill – there are lessons to learn from companies that are further along in their content marketing maturity (see page 4). For example,
most content marketing progress is built on a foundation of a strong commitment to the approach and a documented content marketing strategy.
Welcome to our fifth annual report on the content marketing practices of manufacturers. Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has been conducting annual content marketing research since 2010, but because our data indicated that manufacturers were slower than other industries to adopt content marketing, we didn’t begin producing a manufacturing report until 2014.
It’s been exciting to watch more and more manufacturers launch content marketing initiatives with each passing year. And for those that are just starting out – or are at a standstill – there are lessons to learn from companies that are further along in their content marketing maturity.
Welcome to our ninth annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report. We surveyed content marketers worldwide about a range of content marketing topics including strategy, audience development, technology proficiency, and content types. This report presents the data from the B2B content marketers in North America.
Although issues such as changes in SEO and social media algorithms are top-of-mind for B2B content marketers, they are accustomed to rapid changes in technology that often enable them to do their jobs faster, with better results. When the process-related components of the content marketer’s job are efficient, time is freed up to better serve the audience, discovering and developing the types of content they truly want and need.
We hope you find this research helpful as you plan for 2019!
Our annual content marketing research with new insights useful for 2019 budget planning and benchmarking. This new report focuses on business-to-business (B2B) marketers and their content marketing benchmarks, budgets, and trends.
Welcome to our annual Enterprise Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report. Here we present the findings from enterprise marketers (those who work in organizations with 1,000+ employees) who replied to our 11th Annual Content Marketing Survey.
At the time of the survey, content marketers had just made it through the first half of 2020. Most reported that their organization made quick changes when the pandemic hit, most notably by changing their targeting/messaging strategy, adjusting their editorial calendar, and changing their content distribution/promotion strategy. The majority (57%) expected to spend about the same on content marketing during the second half of 2020 as they spent in the first half (17% expected a decrease).
Team size hadn’t changed drastically compared with the previous year (48% said it stayed the same); yet, another 35% reported an increase.
Overall, one-third of the enterprise respondents reported high levels of content marketing success. These top performers said the top two factors contributing to that success in the last 12 months were “the value our content provides” (79%) and “website changes” (62%).
Looking forward, 74% of respondents felt the pandemic would have a major or moderate long- term impact on their organization’s overall content marketing success. It will be interesting to see how enterprise marketers rise to the challenges in 2021.
A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action
B2B Content Marketing 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends - North America
Hello Content Marketers, Welcome to the fifth annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since we first surveyed marketers on how they use content as part of the marketing mix. Since then, the survey has grown to reach marketers all across the globe. This year, we heard from more than 5,000 marketers—in 25 industries in 109 countries—from for-profit and nonprofit organizations. In this report, you’ll learn how the B2B marketers from North America responded. As you’ll notice, we made some changes to this year’s survey to better reflect how the industry is growing. We added new questions, changed the way we asked some of the prior ones, and even removed a few. We also asked content marketers about the initiatives they’re working on—and the list is long, as you will see… We’re thrilled to be with you on this journey.
Yours in content,
Joe & Ann
Joe Pulizzi
Founder
Content Marketing Institute
Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer
MarketingProfs
Sponsored by Brightcove
B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends: Insights for 2021MarketingProfs
The 11th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report from MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute. In a pandemic world, marketers report that content is more important than ever.
Welcome to the 11th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report. You may notice this year’s report feels different than past years and that’s by design. A year like no other required an approach like no other.
As in past years, we fielded the survey during the summer. We asked many of the same questions as last year but added new ones to see how content marketers were faring several months into the pandemic.
Although the data did not reveal drastic reductions in content marketing resources, many respondents shared in the fill-in comments their challenges of having to do more with less. Others shared their concerns about trying to reach audiences in an overcrowded virtual world.
Nevertheless, one thing stood out: Content marketers are resilient. Most have met the challenges of the pandemic head-on: They’re adapting quickly—and they believe in the value their content provides.
There’s one question on every marketer’s mind: “How do I connect?”
We’ve all been seeking connection since the pandemic struck. Stuck at home, working from kitchen tables and converted closets, marketers have been fighting to create and maintain connections with their audiences.
Despite all the upheaval, content remains a tried-and-true way to generate demand. After all, it’s content-driven experiences that build those precious connections, no matter what’s going on in the world outside.
Connection is more important than ever. And as you’ll find out in this report, successful marketers are beginning to make it easier for prospects to purchase at any stage of the buyer’s journey — messages are shifting from why to buy to how to buy.
This has been another tough year. One negative headline after another has drained audiences’ emotional reserves. They need an escape. Marketing content can offer that empathetic, emotionally stirring olive branch they’re searching for.
As you read on, you’ll discover that blogs, podcasts, and videos are the content types that are most effective at the early stages of the buyer’s journey, where brands are fighting to establish customer awareness and audience interest.
The reason is simple: These content types foster connection. They tell a story, they evoke emotion, and they present a face that the audience can relate to. And the strength of the connections that these content types create helps carry buyers through the rest of their journey on a wave of engagement and investment.
In conclusion: Connection lies in content. The last Content Marketing for Demand Generation survey report (2020) talked about creating desire and holding attention. This year, we talk about making it easier for customers to purchase across all stages of the buyer’s journey.
By providing audiences with earnest and engaging content, you can build lasting connections in 2022 and beyond that drive demand to new heights.
Welcome to the Technology Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report. This report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022.
The research suggested that due to lockdowns and work-from-home mandates, content marketing piqued the interest of many who were previously unaware of its power. With more people than ever spending time online, content marketing presented a prime opportunity to get and stay in front of audiences.
As in the previous year, nearly one in three technology marketers said their organization was extremely or very successful with content marketing. These marketers, our “top performers,” have certain characteristics that set them apart from their peers (see page 4). Some of the biggest things they do differently than their peers:
◾ Document their content marketing strategy
◾ Do an excellent/very good job demonstrating the ROI of their content marketing initiatives
◾ Prioritize their audience’s informational needs over their organization’s sales message
◾ Differentiate their content from the competition
◾ Nurture subscribers/audiences/leads
No matter how successful they are at content marketing, most respondents plan to invest in video in 2022: 72% of all technology respondents forecast investment in this area followed by investment in events (69%), paid media (65%), and owned-media assets (63%).
And, yes, challenges remain. The top challenges are:
◾ Creating content that appeals to multi-level roles within the target audience
◾ Accessing subject matter experts to create content
◾ Internal communication among teams/silos
These internal challenges point to a greater need for technology marketers to formalize content operations within their organizations.
Welcome to the Enterprise Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report. This report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022.
The research suggested that, due to lockdowns and work-from-home mandates, content marketing piqued the interest of many who were previously unaware of its power. With more people than ever spending time online, content marketing presented a prime opportunity to get and stay in front of audiences.
As in the previous year, nearly one in three enterprise marketers said their organization was extremely or very successful with content marketing. These marketers, our “top performers,” have certain characteristics that set them apart from their peers (see page 4). A few of the biggest things they do are to differentiate their content and use content collaboration/calendaring/workflow tools.
No matter how successful they are at content marketing, most respondents plan to invest in video in 2022: 72% of all enterprise respondents forecast investment in this area followed by investment in events (62%), paid media (59%), and owned-media assets (55%).
And, yes, challenges remain. The top challenge, which is the same as it was two years ago, is internal communication between teams/silos (57%). It indicates a pressing need to formalize content operations in enterprises that have not yet done so.
Welcome to the B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report. This report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022.
Our research suggested that, due to work-from-home requirements, content marketing piqued the interest of many who were previously unaware of its power. With more people than ever spending time online, content marketing presented a prime opportunity for businesses to get and stay in front of audiences. Some B2C marketers discovered new audiences altogether.
Short articles and videos were big over the last 12 months with the B2C marketers we surveyed. In addition, expect a lot of B2C investment in video in 2022: 72% forecast investment in this area. Paid media came in a distant second.
Although most B2C marketers reported success with content marketing in the last 12 months, there are still challenges. Respondents said their top two content marketing challenges were creating content that appeals to multi-level roles within the target audience (42%) and internal communication between teams/silos (41%).
If B2C marketers can overcome these challenges, they’ll improve their odds of achieving greater content marketing success in 2022.
Welcome to the Manufacturing Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends with Insights for 2022 report. This report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022.
This year’s research suggested that the pandemic awoke a sleeping giant – content marketing, that is. Without in-person events and face-to-face selling, many who had previously paid little attention to content marketing suddenly became aware of its power. More content marketers got a seat at the table and helped keep many businesses on their audiences’ radar. Some discovered new audiences altogether.
Videos and virtual events/webinars were big over the last 12 months with the manufacturing marketers we surveyed. In addition, 85% expect continued investment in video in 2022, making it the top area of predicted investment.
Yet manufacturing marketers continue to face content marketing challenges within their organizations: 51% said they are challenged with creating valuable content instead of sales-oriented content as well as with overcoming the traditional marketing and sales mindset. Fifty percent said they are challenged with accessing subject matter experts to create content. If manufacturing marketers can overcome these challenges, they’ll improve their odds of achieving greater content marketing success in the coming year.
Welcome to Content Marketing Institute’s first Video & Visual Storytelling Survey. In this report, you’ll learn how content marketers are using videos, how they’re getting them produced, where they’re seeing results, and more.
Are you using video strategically? Are you paying as much attention to your video distribution plan as you are to video creation? Are you measuring results to see what works? All are important to overall video marketing success. Here’s to yours!
Welcome to the 12th Annual Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report. What a year it has been.
This edition of our report looks back on the last 12 months and includes expectations for 2022. Throughout, you will see quotes from the many rich, qualitative responses we received to the question, “What did the pandemic change most about your organization’s content marketing strategy/approach?” In all, 75% of respondents took the time to answer this question and we are ever so grateful. What amazing insights it yielded!
The key theme that emerged was this: The pandemic awoke a sleeping giant – content marketing, that is. Without in-person events and face-to-face selling, many who had previously paid little attention to content marketing suddenly became aware of its power. More content marketers got a seat at the table and helped keep many businesses on their audiences’ radar. Some discovered new audiences altogether.
The research also confirmed what many of us already knew: Content marketers are some of the fiercest business pros around. In the most difficult of times, they get the job done – and many come through more creative and stronger than before.
Congratulations, content marketers, for a job well done in the most difficult of times. Our entire team salutes you!
By day, you’re in the office, cooking up content. By night, you’re in the kitchen, preparing a satisfying meal. But what if we combined the two?
Developing a content marketing strategy is like creating a dinner menu. You start with the basic ingredients and build upon them. You perfect your technique, exercising balance while adding a dash of flavor. And don’t forget, presentation is key. You must distribute and plate your meal beautifully.
So, what are people making and how are they making it? We asked the Content Marketing Institute team to share their favorite content-inspired dishes. Whether you are a first-time cook or a seasoned chef, these recipes will give you new perspective on processes, measurement and ROI, technology, and more. They are definitely ones you want in your repertoire.
We’ve put together the ultimate cookbook for content marketers, filled with tasty (and mildly entertaining) recipes. We hope you enjoy it. Bon appétit!
The 2021 Content Management & Strategy survey gives a snapshot of how marketers use tech to help create, manage, deliver, and scale enterprise content and marketing.
Welcome to our annual Technology Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, based on our latest annual content marketing survey conducted in July 2020.
The study showed that technology marketers, in the throes of adjusting to business changes presented by a global pandemic, put more emphasis on using content marketing to generate demand and leads than they had the previous year. They also were looking more closely at conversion and marketing qualified lead (MQL) metrics to track the performance of their content.
These insights suggest that tech marketers were increasingly called upon to use content marketing for demand and lead generation. It makes sense, then, that their use of virtual events (83%) increased by nine percentage points over the previous year, as virtual relationship-building and selling took a front seat. In addition, livestreaming video finally took off (one-third of all tech respondents—and 53% of those working in large companies—reported using it).
It’s too soon to tell if these will be lasting shifts. Priorities are likely to change again as restrictions caused by the pandemic ease up. We look forward to exploring these topics in our next round of annual content marketing research.
Welcome to our annual B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report. Here we present the results from B2C marketers who replied to our 11th Annual Content Marketing Survey. The events of 2020 have certainly reshaped how organizations conduct their marketing. At the time of this survey, content marketers were still reeling from the events that took place during the first half of 2020. As we usher in 2021, we are still facing constant change and uncertainty.
Many B2C marketers reported adjusting quickly when the pandemic hit; perhaps their companies were doubling down on digital, heavily engaging in virtual events, or trying to keep on top of rapidly changing analytics resulting from more people being at home and online. All these scenarios created the need for new content, formats, and strategies.
As we move into 2021 in a world where most gatherings are still limited, direct-to-consumer will continue to drive B2C. Successful B2C marketers will focus on creating content experiences and building relationships in the digital world.
What makes CMWorld special? The people. Our speakers, attendees, and sponsors are smart, witty, and fun to be around. Networking is something we all are wanting right now, and CMWorld Bingo gives you a way to have those conversations that make CMWorld great.
Virtual conferences and events provide new opportunities for you
to showcase your product or service, meet 1:1 with your current
and potential customers, and listen to the needs of the industry. With such a large investment of time, money, and human resources, it’s no surprise that management expects great returns on each event that your company sponsors.
On behalf of the Content Marketing Institute team, we’re all here to help you. We’re ready for exciting experiences, great ROI for sponsors, and new ways for customers to advance the practice of content marketing because of partner relationships built at our events.
Welcome to Technology Content Marketing 2020: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends. This report is based on the findings from our 10th annual content marketing survey. Technology marketers continue to make progress with content marketing. Approximately one-third rate their organization’s overall content marketing as extremely or very successful, and 76% report they are much more or somewhat more successful compared with one year ago. What makes them successful? When we look at the top performers, we see they treat content marketing as a strategic business function, craft content thoughtfully, experiment with distribution, and measure their results. They use content marketing not only to create brand awareness and generate leads, but also to build loyalty and subscribed audiences.
Unpredictable algorithm shifts. Falling reach and lower engagement rates. Growing consumer mistrust from fake news and data breaches.
Despite woes like these, people still use social media platforms – and marketers are still drawn to their relationship-building powers. In fact, in 2019 research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 61% of B2B marketers and 69% of B2C marketers say they’ve increased their use of social media for content marketing compared with one year ago.
However, navigating the social media landscape is like entering a dark forest without a map. If you aren’t familiar with the terrain and don’t have a solid plan, you can’t expect to reach your destination, let alone make it out of the woods unscathed.
This guide is full of tools that will help you find the best path to success, from planning your social media explorations, to growing legions of brand fans, to engaging them in meaningful ways.
We’ll cover the top content marketing opportunities in the social sphere, including:
- Landmark locations like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
- Video viewing-centric channels like YouTube and Twitch
- Streaming media sites like Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories
- Emerging social platforms like Vero True Social and WeGather Online
Welcome to B2C Content Marketing 2019—Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends. This report presents the results from the B2C marketers who took our ninth annual content marketing survey.
Our research has consistently shown that creating brand awareness is a top goal for B2C content marketing. However, many of this year’s survey respondents also reported strong concern for using content to solidify existing relationships (see page 13).
Content that can be effective at building loyalty takes many shapes and forms today, for example:
- Videos and social media stories that entertain
- In-person events that create a sense of community and belonging
- Podcasts that inspire
- Live or virtual experiences that evoke emotion
- Articles, guides, newsletters, etc., that provide information
Obviously, the list goes on. The point is, that while driving people to content is critical, giving them reasons to keep coming back will grow long-term success!
What are some of the changes content marketers are likely to encounter over the next 12 months and beyond? Find out what dozens of experts see on the horizon in Content Marketing Institute's 11th annual e-book of content marketing predictions.
It's back! Content Marketing World's annual conference ebook featuring a large number of our incredible speakers offering their insights on content marketing, how to level up and advance, how best to amplify your message and so much more. Check out what your favorite content marketers have to say on these topics and also meet some new faces to CMWorld. CMWorld 2018 is going to be epic - be sure to join us there! Game On!
Interactive content enables you to deliver engaging, educational,differentiated content experiences. Discover what other marketersare learning and start your climb.
Connected, interactive content experiences deliver more trusted data, and more measurable results. Original research illuminates how marketersare making big, beautiful music.
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
Monthly Social Media News Update May 2024Andy Lambert
TL;DR. These are the three themes that stood out to us over the course of last month.
1️⃣ Social media is becoming increasingly significant for brand discovery. Marketers are now understanding the impact of social and budgets are shifting accordingly.
2️⃣ Instagram’s new algorithm and latest guidance will help us maintain organic growth. Instagram continues to evolve, but Reels remains the most crucial tool for growth.
3️⃣ Collaboration will help us unlock growth. Who we work with will define how fast we grow. Meta continues to evolve their Creator Marketplace and now TikTok are beginning to push ‘collabs’ more too.
Short video marketing has sweeped the nation and is the fastest way to build an online brand on social media in 2024. In this session you will learn:- What is short video marketing- Which platforms work best for your business- Content strategies that are on brand for your business- How to sell organically without paying for ads.
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
Videos are more engaging, more memorable, and more popular than any other type of content out there. That’s why it’s estimated that 82% of consumer traffic will come from videos by 2025.
And with videos evolving from landscape to portrait and experts promoting shorter clips, one thing remains constant – our brains LOVE videos.
So is there science behind what makes people absolutely irresistible on camera?
The answer: definitely yes.
In this jam-packed session with Stephanie Garcia, you’ll get your hands on a steal-worthy guide that uncovers the art and science to being irresistible on camera. From body language to words that convert, she’ll show you how to captivate on command so that viewers are excited and ready to take action.
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
Digital Money Maker Club – von Gunnar Kessler digital.focsh890
Title One is a comprehensive examination of the impact of digital technologies on
modern society. In a world where technology continues to advance rapidly, this article delves into the nuances and complexities of the digital age, exploring Its implications across various sectors and aspects of life.
It's another new era of digital and marketers are faced with making big bets on their digital strategy. If you are looking at modernizing your tech stack to support your digital evolution, there are a few can't miss (often overlooked) areas that should be part of every conversation. We'll cover setting your vision, avoiding siloes, adding a democratized approach to data strategy, localization, creating critical governance requirements and more. Attendees will walk away with actions they can take into initiatives they are running today and consider for the future.
Search Engine Marketing - Competitor and Keyword researchETMARK ACADEMY
Over 2 Trillion searches are made per day in Google search, which means there are more than 2 Trillion visits happening across the websites of the world wide web.
People search various questions, phrases or words. But some words and phrases are searched
more often than others.
For example, the words, ‘running shoes’ are searched more often than ‘best road running
shoes for men’
These words or phrases which people use to search on Google are called Keywords.
Some keywords are searched more often than others. Number of times a keyword is searched
for in a month is called keyword volume.
Some keywords have more relevant results than others. For the phrase “running shoes” we
get more than 80M relevant results, whereas for “best road running shoes for men” we get
only 8.
The former keyword ‘running shoes’ has way more competition from popular websites to
new and small blogs, whereas the latter keyword doesn’t have that much competition. This
search competition for a keyword is called search difficulty of a keyword or keyword
difficulty.
In other words, if the keyword difficulty is ‘low’ or ‘easy’, there won’t be any competition
and if you target such keywords on your site, you can easily rank on the front page of Google.
Some keywords are searched for, just to know or to learn some information about something,
that’s their search intention. For example, “What shoe size should I choose?” or “How to pick
the right shoe size?”
These keywords which are searched just to know about stuff are called informational
keywords. Typically people who are searching this type of keywords are top of a Conversion
funnel.
Conversion funnel is the journey that search visitors go through on their way to an email
subscription or a premium subscription to the services you offer or a purchase of products
you sell or recommend using your referral link.
For some buyers, research is the most important part when they have to buy a product.
Depending on that, their journey either widens or narrows down. These types of buyers are
Researchers and they spend more time with informational keywords.
Conversion is the action you want from your search visitors. Number of conversions that you
get for every 100 search visitors is called Conversion rate.
People who are at different stages of a conversion funnel use different types of keywords.
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User JourneysSearch Engine Journal
Digital platforms are constantly multiplying, and with that, user engagement is becoming more intricate and fragmented.
So how do you effectively navigate distributing and tailoring your content across these various touchpoints?
Watch this webinar as we dive into the evolving landscape of content strategy tailored for today's fragmented user journeys. Understanding how to deliver your content to your users is more crucial than ever, and we’ll provide actionable tips for navigating these intricate challenges.
You’ll learn:
- How today’s users engage with content across various channels and devices.
- The latest methodologies for identifying and addressing content gaps to keep your content strategy proactive and relevant.
- What digital shelf space is and how your content strategy needs to pivot.
With Wayne Cichanski, we’ll explore innovative strategies to map out and meet the diverse needs of your audience, ensuring every piece of content resonates and connects, regardless of where or how it is consumed.
SEO as the Backbone of Digital MarketingFelipe Bazon
In this talk Felipe Bazon will share how him and his team at Hedgehog Digital share our journey of making C-Levels alike, specially CMOS realize that SEO is the backbone of digital marketing by showing how SEO can contribute to brand awareness, reputation and authority and above all how to use SEO to create more robust global marketing strategies.
A.I. (artificial intelligence) platforms are popping up all the time, and many of them can and should be used to help grow your brand, increase your sales and decrease your marketing costs.In this presentation:We will review some of the best AI platforms that are available for you to use.We will interact with some of the platforms in real-time, so attendees can see how they work.We will also look at some current brands that are using AI to help them create marketing messages, saving them time and money in the process. Lastly, we will discuss the pros and cons of using AI in marketing & branding and have a lively conversation that includes comments from the audience.
Key Takeaways:
Attendees will learn about LLM platforms, like ChatGPT, and how they work, with preset examples and real time interactions with the platform. Attendees will learn about other AI platforms that are creating graphic design elements at the push of a button...pre-set examples and real-time interactions.Attendees will discuss the pros & cons of AI in marketing + branding and share their perspectives with one another. Attendees will learn about the cost savings and the time savings associated with using AI, should they choose to.
2. Welcome
This Year’s B2C Content Marketing
Top Performers At-A-Glance
SECTION1: Usage & Team Organization
SECTION2: Clarity, Commitment &
Overall Success
SECTION3: Content Marketing Strategy
SECTION4: Content Creation & Distribution
SECTION5:Goals & Metrics
SECTION6: Budgets & Spending
Methodology/Demographics
About
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SPONSORED BY
3
4
5
10
18
23
40
43
44
34
2
3. WELCOME
Greetings Marketers,
Welcome to B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. This is our
fifth year reporting on how B2C marketers approach content marketing. Earlier this fall, we released
our companion report on B2B marketing, now in its seventh year.
A lot has changed since we launched our first content marketing survey in 2010. This year, we
redesigned the survey to dig deeper into how marketers are operating in the maturing content
marketing industry. We were encouraged to see that 63% of B2C marketers report their organizations
are much more or somewhat more successful with content marketing than they were one year ago.
What about the B2C marketers who indicated their success was stagnant? The top two reasons
cited were strategy issues (lack of strategy, developing/adjusting strategy) and not enough time for
content marketing. In addition, only 52% agreed that their leadership team gives them ample time
to produce content marketing results.
The fact is, everything about content marketing takes time. It takes time to develop a strategy …
time to develop and distribute quality content … time to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t …
and time to see results. We hope these research insights will be helpful as you consider how much
time to invest in content marketing—and where to spend it—in the year ahead.
Yours in content,
Joe & Ann
Joe Pulizzi
Founder
Content Marketing Institute
Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer
MarketingProfs
3
SPONSORED BY
4. 4
COMPARISON CHART
Most Successful All Respondents Least Successful
Organization is clear on what an effective or
successful content marketing program looks like
80% 40% 13%
Organization is extremely/very committed to content marketing 90% 60% 37%
Describes organization’s content marketing maturity as sophisticated/mature 65% 30% 5%
Has a documented content marketing strategy 63% 40% 20%
Content marketing strategy is extremely/very effective 78% 35% 5%
Measures content marketing ROI 91% 75% 54%
Percentage of total marketing budget allocated to content marketing (average) 38% 26% 21%
Agrees that organization is realistic about what content marketing can achieve 90% 69% 52%
Always/frequently considers how their content impacts overall experience
a person has with their organization
90% 71% 50%
Always/frequently delivers content consistently 87% 61% 36%
Agrees that leadership gives ample time to produce results 75% 52% 38%
This Year’s B2C Content Marketing Top Performers
At-A-Glance
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Chart term definitions: A top performer (aka, “most successful”) is one who characterizes his or her organization’s overall content marketing approach as extremely or very successful.
The “least successful” characterize their organization’s approach as minimally or not at all successful.
SPONSORED BY
5. 5
USAGE&TEAM
ORGANIZATION
30% 49% 42%Are in the
sophisticated/
mature phase of
content marketing
maturity
Have small content
marketing teams
serving the entire
organization
Have experienced
management changes
that have had a
positive impact on
the organization’s
content marketing
USAGE&TEAM
ORGANIZATION
SPONSORED BY
B2C CONTENT MARKETING
6. 6
USAGE & TEAM ORGANIZATION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Does your organization use content marketing?
Content marketing is defined as “a strategic
marketing approach focused on creating
and distributing valuable, relevant, and
consistent content to attract and retain a
clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to
drive profitable customer action.”
Note: Of the 14% nonusers, 51% said they
plan to launch a content marketing effort
within 12 months; 46% had no immediate
plans to begin using content marketing; and
3% had used content marketing in the past
but stopped.
Base = B2C marketers.
86%
Yes
14%
No
Percentage of B2C Marketers
Using Content Marketing
SPONSORED BY
7. 7
USAGE & TEAM ORGANIZATION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How would you describe your organization’s
content marketing maturity level?
HowB2CMarketersAssessTheirOrganization’sContentMarketingMaturityLevel
SOPHISTICATED MATURE ADOLESCENT YOUNG FIRST STEPS
6% 24% 32% 22% 14%Providing accurate
measurement
to the business,
scaling across the
organization
Finding success,
yet challenged with
integration across the
organization
Have developed
a business case,
seeing early success,
becoming more
sophisticated with
measurement
and scaling
Growing pains,
challenged with
creating a cohesive
strategy and a
measurement plan
Doing some aspects
of content, but
have not yet begun
to make content
marketing a process
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
SPONSORED BY
8. 8
USAGE & TEAM ORGANIZATION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How is content marketing structured
within your organization?
B2C Content Marketing Organizational Structure
Centralized content marketing group
that works with multiple brands/product
lines throughout the organization
Each brand (product line/property)
has its own content marketing team
Both: A centralized group as well
as individual teams throughout
the organization
Small (or one-person) marketing/
content marketing team
serves the entire organization
Other
21%
8%
18%
49%
3%
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
SPONSORED BY
9. 9
USAGE & TEAM ORGANIZATION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Has your organization undergone any management
and/or structural changes over the last 12 months that
have impacted your content marketing approach?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
47%
9%42%
B2C Management Changes Impacting Content Marketing
Yes, had
a positive
impact
Yes, had
a negative
impact
No changes
SPONSORED BY
10. 10
CLARITY,COMMITMENT
&OVERALLSUCCESS
60% 25% 63%Are extremely or
very committed to
content marketing
Are extremely or
very successful
with their overall
approach to
content marketing
Are much more or
somewhat more
successful with
content marketing
than they were one
year ago
SPONSORED BY
B2C CONTENT MARKETING
11. 11
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
In your organization, is it clear what an effective or
successful content marketing program looks like?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
26%
33%
40%
Percentage of B2C Marketers Whose Organizations
Have Clarity on Content Marketing Success
Yes
No
Unsure
SPONSORED BY
12. 12
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How would you describe your organization’s
commitment level to content marketing?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
31%
7%
1%
42%
18%
B2C Organizations’ Commitment to Content Marketing
Extremely
Committed
Very Committed
Somewhat
CommittedNot Very
Committed
Not At All
Committed
SPONSORED BY
13. 13
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
How would you characterize the success
of your organization’s current overall
content marketing approach?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
Note: The survey defined success as
achieving your organization’s desired/
targeted results. This report defines the
Top 2 respondents (extremely/very) as
“most successful” or “top performers,”
and the Bottom 2 (minimally/not at all)
as “least successful.”
45%
27%3%
21%
4%
How B2C Marketers Rate the Success of Their
Organizations’ Overall Content Marketing Approach
Extremely
Successful
Very
Successful
Moderately
Successful
Minimally
Successful
Not At All
Successful
SPONSORED BY
14. 14
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
How does the success of your organization’s
current overall content marketing approach
compare with one year ago?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
How B2C Marketers Rate Their Organization’s
Content Marketing Approach Compared
With One Year Ago
18%
45%
23%
4%
1%
9%
Much More
Successful
Somewhat
More
Successful
About the
Same as
One Year
Ago
Somewhat
Less
Successful
Much Less
Successful
Does Not
Apply
(program less than
one year old)
SPONSORED BY
15. 15
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
To what factors do you attribute your
organization’s increase in overall success?
Base=Contentmarketerswhosaidtheirorganizations’contentmarketingsuccessismuch/
somewhatmoresuccessfulthanoneyearago.Aidedlist;multipleresponsespermitted.
Other reasons cited: More
Budget for Content Marketing
(29%), Content Marketing
Technologies/Tools (27%),
Content Marketing Training/
Education (26%), We Have Given
Our Efforts Time to Bear Fruit
and Are Now Getting Results
(21%), Changes in Our Target
Audience(s) (12%), Assistance
of Outside Expertise (11%), and
Other (4%).
Factors Contributing to B2C Marketers’
Increased Success Over the Last Year
77%
71%
54%
49%
Content Creation (higher
quality, more efficient)
Strategy (development
or adjustment)
Content Marketing Has
Become a Greater Priority
Spending More Time on
Content Marketing
Content Distribution (better
targeting, identification
of what works)
Management/HR (organizational
changes, staffing, new content
marketing roles)
Content Measurement
(growing in ability to
show results)
53%
43%
41%
SPONSORED BY
16. 16
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
To what factors do you attribute your organization’s
stagnancy in success with content marketing?
Base = Content marketers who said their organizations’ content marketing success is
about the same as one year ago. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Other reasons cited: Other reasons cited:
Content Marketing Technologies/Tools [lack of,
or new systems that require a learning curve]
(21%), Lack of Content Marketing Training/
Education (20%), Our Program Hasn’t Had
Enough Time to Bear Fruit/Produce Results
(19%), Lack of Adequate or Effective Content
Distribution (18%), Changes in Our Target
Audience(s) (6%), and Other (8%).
Factors Contributing to B2C Marketers’
Stagnant Success Over the Last Year
49%
Not Enough Time Devoted
to Content Marketing
Content-Creation
Challenges
Strategy Issues (lack of strategy,
developing/adjusting strategy)
Management/HR
(organizational changes,
staffing issues)
Content Marketing Budget
Issues (inadequate budget,
budget cuts)
Content Marketing Not
Prioritized Highly Enough
Content Measurement
Challenges
48%
37%
32%
28%
28%
25%
SPONSORED BY
Note: Due to the low percentage of marketers who said
their organization’s overall content marketing success
is somewhat or much less successful compared with
one year ago, this report does not include a chart for
“Factors Contributing to B2C Marketers’ Decreased
Success Over the Last Year.”
17. 17
CLARITY, COMMITMENT & OVERALL SUCCESS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Indicate your level of agreement with the following statements
concerning content marketing in your organization.
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
B2C Marketers’ Opinions About Content Marketing
86% 8% 6%
80% 13% 7%
73% 16% 11%
71% 13% 16%
69% 17% 14%
69% 16% 15%
64% 19% 17%
52% 26% 22%
Content marketing is an important component
of our organization’s marketing program
Our organization is focused on providing an
overall exceptional experience for our audience
Our organization is focused more on building
long-term relationships than on getting quick
(campaign-like) results from our content marketing
Our organization values creativity and
craft in content creation and production
Our organization is focused on building
audiences (building one or more subscriber bases)
Our organization has realistic expectations
about what content marketing can achieve
We are able to respond quickly when necessary
to adjust our content marketing strategy
Our leadership team gives us ample time to
produce content marketing results
■ Agree ■ Neither Agree Nor Disagree ■ Disagree
SPONSORED BY
18. 18
CONTENTMARKETING
STRATEGY
40%Have a
documented
content marketing
strategy
76% 35%Say their strategy
includes a plan to
operate content
marketing as an
ongoing business
process, not
simply a campaign
Say their strategy
is extremely or very
effective at helping
their organization
achieve its current
content marketing
goals
SPONSORED BY
B2C CONTENT MARKETING
19. 19
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Does your organization have a
content marketing strategy?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
34%
3%
40%
23%
Percentage of B2C Marketers Who Have
a Content Marketing Strategy
Yes, and it is
documented
No, with no plans
to have one within
12 months
Yes, but it is not
documented
No, but plan to have
one within 12 months
SPONSORED BY
20. 20
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which of the following elements are included in
your content marketing strategy?
Base = Content marketers who have a content marketing strategy.
Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Elements B2C Marketers Include
in Their Content Marketing Strategy
76%
A plan to operate content marketing
as an ongoing business process,
not simply a campaign
Content mission and a differentiated
story/value to deliver
Deep understanding of
audience personas
A process to align with other sales/
marketing/loyalty initiatives
Well-defined business goals for content
A measurement plan to provide both
insight and progress toward
the business goals
The ability to scale over time (i.e., to grow
along with your organization)
Other elements
Unsure
58%
57%
56%
55%
51%
37%
18%
3%
SPONSORED BY
21. 21
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How effective is your content marketing strategy
at helping your organization achieve its current
content marketing goals?
Base = Content marketers who have a content marketing strategy; aided list.
53%
12%0%
28%
7%
How B2C Marketers Rate the Effectiveness
of Their Content Marketing Strategy
Extremely
Effective
Very
Effective
Moderately
Effective
Minimally
Effective
Not At All
Effective
SPONSORED BY
22. 22
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How effective is your content marketing strategy
compared with one year ago?
Base = Content marketers who have a content marketing strategy; aided list.
How B2C Marketers Rate the Effectiveness of Their
Content Marketing Strategy Compared With One Year Ago
24%
46%
19%
3%
1%
6%
Much More
Effective
Somewhat
More
Effective
About the
Same as
One Year
Ago
Somewhat
Less
Effective
Much Less
Effective
Does Not
Apply
(content marketing
strategy is less than
one year old)
SPONSORED BY
23. 23
CONTENTCREATION
&DISTRIBUTION
71% 70% 69%Always/frequently
prioritize
delivering content
quality over
quantity
Always/frequently
consider how
their content
impacts the
overall experience
a person has with
their organization
Always/frequently
focus on creating
content for their
audience versus
their brand
SPONSORED BY
B2C CONTENT MARKETING
24. 24
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which content marketing tools does your
organization currently use?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 50% of
respondents said they use
the following tools: Buyer
Personas (40%), Media Plan/
Paid Advertising Calendar
(39%), Measurement KPIs/
Dashboard (39%), Marketing
Automation Software (27%),
Editorial Mission Statement
(23%), Content Collaboration/
Workflow Software (15%),
Content Distribution
Software (13%), Digital Asset
Management (DAM) System/
File Storage (13%), Content
Planning/Creation Software
(11%), and Other (6%).
B2C Marketers’ Content Marketing Tool Usage
78%
Social Media Guidelines
Brand Style/Tone of Voice Guidelines
Social Media Calendar
Content Management System
Editorial Calendar
Dedicated Email Platform
Analytics Tools
68%
63%
55%
55%
53%
52%
:
SPONSORED BY
25. 25
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
Which techniques does your organization use to
gain knowledge about its target audience(s)?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 40% of
respondents said they use
the following techniques:
Database Analysis (35%),
Secondary Data Analysis
(35%), Quantitative Primary
Research (33%), Qualitative
Primary Research (30%),
Auditing Existing Buyer Data
(27%), Usability Testing (18%),
Expert Advisory Boards (12%),
and Other (3%). 4% said they
do not use techniques.
Techniques B2C Marketers Use
to Learn About Audience(s)
59%
A/B Testing
Customer Feedback/Panels
Social Listening
Competitive Analysis
Employee Feedback
Keyword Research
Website Analysis
54%
54%
50%
49%
47%
45%
SPONSORED BY
26. 26
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Compared with 2016, do you expect your
organization to produce more, the same amount,
or less original content in 2017?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
21%
2%
3%
73%
Expected Change in B2C Content Creation
(2016 vs. 2017)
More
Same
AmountLess
Unsure
SPONSORED BY
27. 27
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which content marketing tactics does
your organization use?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 40% of
respondents said they
use the following tactics:
Ebooks/White Papers (35%),
Interactive Tools (31%),
Online Presentations (31%),
Webinars/Webcasts (31%),
Print Magazines (22%),
Mobile Apps (21%), Video
[live-streaming media]
(16%), Books (16%), Digital
Magazines (15%), Print
Newsletters (14%), Research
Reports (14%), Podcasts
(10%), Separate Content Hubs
(10%), Virtual Conferences
(6%), and Other (13%).
B2C Marketers’ Content Marketing Tactic Usage
85%
Infographics
Video (pre-produced)
Illustrations/Photos
In-Person Events
Email Newsletters
Blogs
Social Media Content
75%
75%
59%
48%
45%
60%
Average
Number
Used:
7
SPONSORED BY
28. 28
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which content marketing tactics that your
organization uses will be most critical to its overall
content marketing success in 2017?
Base = Content marketers who use the tactics shown; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 20% of respondents
whose organizations use the
following tactics said the tactic
will be critical to overall content
marketing success in 2017:
Ebooks/White Papers (17%),
Infographics (15%), Illustrations/
Photos (14%), Webinars/Webcasts
(14%), Interactive Tools (12%),
Online Presentations (10%), Mobile
Apps (10%), Video [live-streaming
media] (8%), Books (5%), Research
Reports (5%), Print Magazines
(5%), Digital Magazines (4%),
Podcasts (4%), Separate Content
Hubs (4%), Print Newsletters (3%),
Virtual Conferences (3%), and
Other (7%).
Tactics Used That B2C Marketers Say Will be
Most Critical to Content Marketing Success in 2017
58%
Video (pre-produced)
In-Person Events
Email Newsletters
Blogs
Social Media Content
51%
43%
27%
34%
SPONSORED BY
29. 29
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How often do you take the following concepts into
account while creating content for your organization?
Base: Content marketers; aided list.
How Often B2C Marketers Consider
Various Concepts While Creating Content
71% 21% 8%
70% 24% 6%
69% 23% 8%
63% 27% 10%
61% 27% 12%
60% 28% 12%
56% 32% 12%
Prioritize delivering content
quality over content quantity
Consider how our content impacts the overall
experience a person has with our organization
Differentiate our content from our competition’s
Focus on creating content for our
audience versus our brand
Deliver content consistently
Craft content based on specific
points of the buyer’s journey
Prioritize providing the right content
to the right person at the right time
■ Always/Frequently ■ Sometimes ■ Rarely/Never
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30. 30
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which channels does your organization use
to distribute content?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 15% of
respondents said they use
the following channels:
Snapchat (11%), SlideShare
(10%), Tumblr (8%), iTunes
(5%), Medium (5%), and
Other (15%).
Channels B2C Marketers Use to Distribute Content
89%
Instagram
Pinterest
Print
Google+
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
89%
73%
65%
47%
39%
37%
31%
66%
Average
Number
Used:
6
SPONSORED BY
31. 31
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How important is each channel your organization
uses to its overall content marketing success?
Base = Content marketers who use the channels shown; multiple responses permitted.
Note: Percentages comprise
marketers who rated each
channel a 4 or 5 on a 5-point
scale where 5 = Extremely
Important and 1 = Not At All
Important. Importance ratings
for Snapchat, SlideShare,
Tumblr, iTunes, and Medium
are not reported due to low
incidence of use.
Channels B2C Marketers Use to Distribute Content
Rated by Importance to Overall Content Marketing Success
91%
Facebook
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Email
Print
68%
62%
57%
57%
55%
42%
29%
60%
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32. 32
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which paid methods of content promotion does your
organization use in its content marketing efforts?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Paid Methods B2C Marketers Use to Promote Content
89%
Traditional Online Banner Ads
Native Advertising
Do Not Use
Print or Other Offline Promotion
Search Engine Marketing
Social Promotion
76%
68%
50%
29%
7%
60%
Average
Number
Used:
4
Content Discovery Tools
SPONSORED BY
33. 33
CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How effective are the paid methods of content
promotion that your organization uses?
Base = Content marketers who use the paid methods shown; multiple responses permitted.
Note: Percentages comprise
marketers who rated each paid
method a 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale
where 5 = Extremely Effective
and 1 = Not At All Effective. The
survey defined effectiveness
as accomplishing your content
marketing objectives.
Paid Methods B2C Marketers Use to
Promote Content Rated by Effectiveness
Print or Other Offline Promotion
Native Advertising
Traditional Online Banner Ads
Content Discovery Tools
Social Promotion
Search Engine Marketing
66%
65%
38%
37%
34%
42%
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34. 34
GOALS&METRICS
74% 73% 78%Will focus on brand
awareness as a
content marketing
goal over the next
12 months
Use website traffic
to measure how
well their content
marketing is
producing results
Can demonstrate how
content marketing
has increased
audience engagement
SPONSORED BY
B2C CONTENT MARKETING
35. 35
GOALS & METRICS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which content marketing goals will your
organization focus on over the next 12 months?
Base: Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 50% of respondents
cited the following goals:
Customer Evangelism/Creating
Brand Advocates (46%), Lead
Nurturing (45%), Upsell/Cross-Sell
(30%), Cost Savings (22%), and
Other (3%).
Organizational Goals for B2C Content Marketing
Over Next 12 Months
Customer Retention/Loyalty
Building an Audience via
Subscription Growth
Engagement
Sales
Brand Awareness
Lead Generation
74%
71%
63%
53%
50%
66%
SPONSORED BY
36. 36
GOALS & METRICS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which metrics does your organization use
to determine how well its content marketing
is producing results?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 40% of respondents
said they use the following
metrics: Qualitative Feedback from
Customers (38%), Sales Lead Quality
(37%), Sales Lead Quantity (32%),
Inbound Links (29%), Customer
Renewal Rates (27%), Data Capture
(26%), Purchase Intent (21%), Brand
Lift (21%), and Other (6%). 5% said
they do not use metrics.
B2C Marketers’ Content Marketing Metrics Usage
SEO Ranking
Sales
Subscriber/Community Growth
Social Media Sharing
Time Spent on Website
Higher Conversion Rates
Website Traffic 73%
66%
53%
53%
50%
50%
43%
SPONSORED BY
37. 37
GOALS & METRICS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Which metrics that your organization uses provide truly
measurable results of your content marketing efforts?
Base = Content marketers who use the metrics shown; multiple responses permitted.
Fewer than 20% of respondents whose
organizations use the following metrics
said the metric provides truly measurable
results of their content marketing efforts:
Customer Renewal Rates (16%), Sales
Lead Quantity (16%), Qualitative Feedback
from Customers (14%), Data Capture
(10%), Inbound Links (7%), Brand Lift (6%),
Purchase Intent (5%), and Other (2%).
5% said none of the metrics they use provide
truly measurable results.
Metrics Used That B2C Marketers Say Provide
Truly Measurable Results of Content Marketing Efforts
SEO Ranking
Social Media Sharing
Sales
Time Spent on Website
Higher Conversion Rates
Sales Lead Quality
Website Traffic 44%
35%
32%
29%
25%
25%
23%
21%
Subscriber/Community Growth
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38. 38
GOALS & METRICS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
At which phases of the buyer’s journey does your
organization measure content marketing ROI?
Base = Content marketers. Aided list; multiple responses permitted.
Phases of Buyer’s Journey Where B2C Marketers
Measure Content Marketing ROI
Top-of-funnel
• Lead generation
• Building an audience
Mid-funnel
• Developing relationships with
qualified leads and existing customers
Bottom-of-funnel
• Conversions
• Sales
Post-sales
• Retention
• Upsell/Cross-Sell
• Loyalty
• Evangelism
Do not measure
content marketing ROI
39%
37%
45%
29%
25%
SPONSORED BY
39. 39
GOALS & METRICS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Indicate your level of agreement with each statement
concerning the content marketing metrics
used in your organization.
Base = Content marketers who use metrics to determine content marketing results; aided list.
B2C Marketers’ Metrics Agreement Statements
78% 15% 7%
67% 21% 12%
63% 23% 14%
36% 40% 24%
I/my team can demonstrate how content marketing has…
Increased audience
engagement
Increased our sales
Increased our
number of leads
Decreased our cost of
customer acquisition
■ Agree ■ Neither Agree Nor Disagree ■ Disagree
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40. 40
BUDGETS&SPENDING
26% 42% 39%Is the average
proportion of total
marketing budget
that is spent on
content marketing
Plan to increase
their content
marketing
spending over the
next 12 months
Plan to keep their
content marketing
spending around the
same level over the
next 12 months
SPONSORED BY
B2C CONTENT MARKETING
41. 41
BUDGETS & SPENDING
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
Approximately what percentage of your organization’s
total marketing budget (not including staff)
is spent on content marketing?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
Percentage of Total Marketing Budget Spent
on B2C Content Marketing
2%
3%
8%
12%
17%
25%
2%
100% 75-99% 50-74% 25-49% 10-24% 1-9% 0% Unsure
31%
Average:
26%
SPONSORED BY
42. 42
BUDGETS & SPENDING
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
How do you expect your organization’s content
marketing budget to change in the next 12 months?
Base = Content marketers; aided list.
39%
2%
17%
42%
B2C Content Marketing Spending
(Over Next 12 Months)
Increase
Remain
the Same
Decrease
Unsure
SPONSORED BY
43. 43
METHODOLOGY/DEMOGRAPHICS
2017 B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
B2CContentMarketing:2017Benchmarks,Budgets,andTrends—NorthAmerica was produced by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs
and sponsored by Hightail.
The seventh annual Content Marketing Survey, from which the results of this report were generated, was mailed electronically to a sample of marketers
using lists from Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs, The Association for Data-driven Marketing & Advertising (ADMA), and WTWH Media.
A total of 2,562 recipients from around the globe—representing a full range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes—completed the survey
during July and August 2016. This report presents the findings from the 480 respondents who indicated their organizations primarily sell products/
services to consumers (B2C) [31%] or to both consumers and businesses (B2C+B2B) [69%] in North America.
Industry
Classification
Size of Company
(by Employees)
Job Title/
Function
28%
22%
23%
27%
■ Small (10-99 Employees)
■ Micro(Fewerthan10Employees)
■ Midsize (100-999 Employees)
■ Large (1,000+ Employees)
■ Agency (Advertising, Digital Marketing,
Content Marketing, PR, Marcom)
■ Retail Trade/Distribution
■ Banking/Accounting/Financial
■ Consulting
■ Healthcare/Medical/Pharmaceuticals
■ Manufacturing
■ Technology
■ Other
38%
21%
7%
16%
7%
6%5%
■ Marketing/Advertising/
Communications/PR Management
■ Corporate Management
(Owner/President, CEO, CMO)
■ Content Creation/Management
■ Marketing – Staff/Support
■ General Management (GM, VP)
■ Consultant
■ Other
14%
6% 6%
6%
6%
8%
43%
11%
n = 480
n = 480
n = 411 respondents who indicated their
organization uses content marketing.
SPONSORED BY
44. 44
ABOUT
Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs thank all the survey respondents and the
distribution partners who made this survey possible.
About Content Marketing Institute (CMI)
Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands how
to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest content
marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and the Intelligent Content Conference event is held every spring.
CMI publishes the bi-monthly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of
the best-known brands in the world. Watch this video to learn more about CMI, a UBM company. To view all research and to subscribe to our
emails, visit www.contentmarketinginstitute.com.
About MarketingProfs
MarketingProfs offers real-world education for modern marketers. More than 600,000 marketing professionals worldwide rely on our free
daily publications, virtual conferences, MarketingProfs University, and more to stay up to date on the most important trends and tactics in
marketing—and how to apply them to their businesses. Visit MarketingProfs.com for more information.
About Hightail
Hightail is how marketers and their creative teams review, improve, and approve great content. Teams easily share and discuss images, videos,
infographics, presentations, and other visual files in one place, streamlining creative collaboration and getting their best work in front of
audiences faster. Based in Campbell, CA, Hightail serves more than 50 million creative collaborators worldwide. #createbetter with
http://www.hightail.com
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