23 things you didn’t know about B2B content marketing
Check out these 23 fresh insights that can help drive your forward-thinking content marketing program
Content marketing is more common among B2C companies than B2B, right?
Wrong. Eighty-eight percent of B2B companies use content marketing in some form.
Yeah, but are B2B companies any good at it?
More than one-third (34 percent) say they have “effective” or “very effective” social media programs.
Is there a way to improve on that?
Yes, use media analytics in combination. The 20 percent of companies that do not use analytics have much lower effectiveness and usage with social media while those that use analytics, monitoring and content marketing are three times more effective than those that use analytics alone.
Do they make any money at it?
Almost one-third (29 percent) generate ROI from their social media programs.
How much do they spend?
Twenty-eight percent of the total marketing budget.
What are they trying to accomplish?
The top four goals of B2B content marketing programs are sales lead quality (87 percent), sales (84 percent), higher conversion rates (82 percent) and sales lead quantity (78 percent).
What does a typical B2B content marketing program look like?
B2B companies use 13 tactics on average, from social media at 93 percent to online presentations at 65 percent.
What content formats work best with B2B audiences?
Practical guides, hot topics, research and insights, case studies, infographics, authoritative industry news.
Do B2B and B2C marketers use different platforms?
Linkedin is the top place for B2B content, used by 94 percent of companies.
Linkedin is a crowded place. How can B2B marketers do better than the average?
The average number of shares for a Linkedin post is 230. For more frequent shares, use one of the following headlines: how to, you need to, why you should, can learn from, the future of.
What about B2B associations?
Almost three-fourths (71 percent) of B2B associations rate their content marketing efforts at “somewhat” or “very effective.”
What does content marketing look like for associations?
Enewsletters are the most common, used by 89 percent of associations.
Enewsletters are so old school. Do they still work?
And how! Email marketing generates $38 for every $1 spent, a whopping 3,800 percent ROI.
Is that true for B2B companies as well as associations?
Yes, 83 percent of B2B companies use enewsletters as part of their content marketing program.
Of the three types of email marketing—trigger, nurture or batch—which is the most effective?
Trigger emails perform three times better than the other two.
How much work is content marketing?
Almost half, 46 percent, of B2B companies say their biggest content marketing challenge is bandwidth.
Should it be outsourced?
A third of companies, 30 percent, outsource some or all of their content marketing.
Is there a way to time things in an always-on media world?
The best time to post to Facebook, the No. 1 driver to content (52 percent compared to only 9.7 percent from a homepage), is Thursday or Friday afternoon or the weekend. The best time to post to Linkedin is Tuesday morning.
Does a B2B content marketing program have to be multimedia?
Given that the second most effective platform for B2B organizations is YouTube, 62 percent behind Linkedin’s 80 percent, the answer is yes.
How many videos do most people produce?
On average, companies produce 11 videos a year.
How much of all content do most people produce?
About a third of companies (30 percent) post content every week.
How long is long enough but not too long?
There’s no magic number, especially as longform content experiments flourish. But a common sweet spot for online content is 750 words, exactly halfway between 500 and 900 words with three images.
How long is 8.5 seconds?
The average length of time it takes to read a headline and decide to click on it. In other words, that’s all the time you have to convince a user that your content is worth consuming.
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