Are you facing challenges in B2B content marketing? This week’s Ecommerce Eye Candy can help you understand the context of your challenge.
The information in this infographic is based on a benchmark report, “B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America” which was produced by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs and sponsored by Brightcove.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a pervasive B2B marketing process whose importance is constantly growing. Especially in the wake of Google’s updated search algorithm, called Hummingbird, content marketing plays an even bigger role in search engine marketing, SEO, and making sure that your business is discovered on the web.
Of course, in this day and age, almost any type of marketing is content marketing. Whether it’s the discover phase of the sales cycle or the final decision before a purchase, any kind of helpful information that your company offers can be focused into content marketing. Even your phone support, hold messages and 404 pages can be turned into pieces of content.
Profile of Effective B2B Content Marketing Teams
Mentioned in the report, though not included in this infographic is data on the profile of the most effective B2B content marketers. Typically, these power marketers:
- Have a documented content strategy
- Have someone who oversees the content marketing strategy
- Uses 15 different content tactics and sevent different social media platforms on average
- Spends 39 percent of their marketing budget on content marketing.
“Content Marketing is the practice of creating or curating words, pictures, video and other communication assets that educate, inform, delight, persuade and drive consumer behaviors that build businesses.” – Jay Baer via What is Content Marketing.
Segmenting Content
According to the infographic, a piece of content is often tailored along these four lines:
- Industry trends
- Marketing personas
- Company characteristics
- Stage in the buying cycle
Measuring Success
The primary goals of your content marketing efforts include increasing brand awareness, lead generation and customer aquisition. Success can also be determined based on web traffic, the quality of leads and social media sharing.
Content marketing is really just another phrase to describe the ever important task of communicating your value to customers and potential customers. Just remember, the last thing customers want is spam: It’s easier to attract customers with a magnet than a sledgehammer.
