What’s Content Marketing Anyway?
It goes by many names: Custom publishing, branded content, corporate publishing, private media, corporate journalism, customer publishing, and so on. However, nothing says it better that content marketing.
“Content marketing is the art of understanding exactly what your customers need to know and delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way.”
But no matter what you call it, content marketing is nothing new. Companies have been creating and distributing content for many years, to attract new business and to retain existing customers.
Trends in Content Marketing
According to the 2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends Report, 93 percent of B2B marketers currently use content marketing as part of their business development efforts. That’s a 2 percent increase over 2015. Given this trend, marketers are seeing substantial results.
Here are some other interesting results regarding content marketing:
- 85% of lead generation and 84% of sales will be the most important goals for content marketing over the next 12-months
- 58% of businesses plan on increasing their content marketing budget over the next 12-months
- 30% of marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing
- 89% of businesses surveyed said that writing is the number one function of content marketing they outsource
Social media is used more frequently to distribute content.
Percentage of B2B marketers who use various social media sites to distribute content
- 94% LinkedIn
- 87% Twitter
- 84% Facebook
- 74% YouTube
- 62% Google+
- 37% SlideShare
- 25% Pinterest
Top five organizational goals cited for B2B content marketing
- 82% Brand Awareness
- 74% Lead Generation
- 71% Customer Acquisition
- 68% Thought Leadership
- 64% Engagement
Top three challenges content marketers face
- 69% Lack of Time
- 67% Producing Enough Content
- 47% Producing The Kind of Content That Engages
Intrigued?
Content marketing is here for the long haul and may be the biggest opportunity that your business has to communicate with your customers as never before. If you’re thinking that you don’t have enough staff or time to consistently create and integrate content marketing into your schedule, let us help you get started. We’ll create a custom made media calendar that’ll keep you on tract as well as on budget.
