North American business-to-business (B2B) enterprise marketers (1,000+ employees) use more content marketing tactics, outsource content creation more frequently, and are more challenged with integration across marketing, when compared with their B2B peers overall.
These are among the data findings from our newest Content Marketing Institute report, B2B Enterprise Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budget, and Trends — North America, sponsored by Marketo. This study reports on the practices of enterprise marketers and draws comparisons against B2B marketers overall.
Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America from Content Marketing Institute
Here are some highlights of the key insights you can find in the report:
Enterprise marketers use an average of 16 content marketing tactics
The top three most widely adopted content marketing tactics are videos (87 percent), website articles (86 percent), and in-person events (85 percent). B2B enterprise marketers use all tactics more frequently than their B2B peers overall do. Like those peers, they find in-person events to be the most effective tactic.
They use an average of four social media platforms, with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube being the most popular
B2B enterprise marketers use Facebook (80 percent) as often as their B2B peers overall do; however, they use YouTube more often (74 percent vs. 61 percent), and Twitter and LinkedIn less often (76 percent vs. 80 percent, and 71 percent vs. 83 percent, respectively).
Nearly half plan to increase their content marketing budgets
Forty-six percent of B2B enterprise marketers plan to increase the amount of budget they allocate to content marketing over the next 12 months, compared with 52 percent of their B2B peers overall.
Sixty-five percent outsource content creation
B2B enterprise marketers outsource content creation more frequently than their B2B peers overall do (65 percent vs. 43 percent).
Their biggest challenge is producing the kind of content that engages
While their B2B peers overall cite producing enough content as their biggest challenge, B2B enterprise marketers are more challenged with producing content that engages. They also are three-times more likely than their B2B peers overall to be challenged with a lack of integration across marketing.
Just 32 percent believe they are effective or very effective at content marketing
Like their B2B peers overall (36 percent), enterprise marketers struggle with their effectiveness at content marketing. However, B2B marketers across companies of all sizes appear to believe that continued investment in content marketing will pay off: Approximately half of those who rate their organizations as least effective are planning to increase their content marketing spend by nearly as much as their more successful peers are.
Want to learn more? Download our full report to get answers to questions like:
What goals do B2B enterprise marketers have for content marketing?
How do they measure content marketing success?
How do they tailor their content?
What does the profile of a best-in-class B2B enterprise content marketer look like?
What do you think of the findings? Are they consistent with what you are experiencing? Let us know in the comments!
Special thanks to MarketingProfs for their participation in the annual survey on content marketing and the overall B2B North America comparisons made here.
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