2014 B2C Content Marketing Research: Strategy Influences Success
This article originally appeared in the blog published by the Content Marketing Institute.
Last year, we took our first look at how business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers are using content marketing. Our second annual B2C Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends — North America, produced by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs and sponsored by Imagination, reveals what has changed. It also provides some solid insight into what differentiates effective marketers from their less effective peers.
One of the key observations — and we saw this with our recent business-to-business (B2B) research as well, is that marketers with a documented content marketing strategy rate themselves as more effective in every area of content marketing when compared with those who do not have a strategy. Unfortunately, it seems that many marketers do not a have a documented strategy in place to guide their efforts.
More B2C marketers use content marketing — but the majority have no documented strategy
Content marketing usage among B2C marketers has risen from 86 percent last year to 90 percent this year. However, not even half of those marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. On the other hand, when we take a deeper dive, 60 percent of B2C marketers who rate themselves as most effective at content marketing, do indeed have a documented strategy. Not surprising, only 12 percent of marketers who rated themselves as least effective have a documented strategy.
Click to tweet: More B2C marketers use content marketing — but the majority have no documented strategy #CMIcontent
Tactic effectiveness ratings are up
B2C marketers’ confidence in the 10 tactics they consider to be most effective has risen this year, with the exception of blogs, which are down two percentage points. For the second year, B2C marketers have rated in-person events as the most effective tactic, with confidence in effectiveness increasing substantially (from 62 percent last year to 74 percent this year).
Click to tweet: B2C marketers have rated in-person events as the most effective content marketing tactic #CMIcontent
B2C marketers are using social media more frequently
As we’ve seen with B2B marketers, B2C marketers are using all social media platforms more frequently this year than they did last year. LinkedIn had the biggest jump in B2C usage: from 51 percent last year to 71 percent this year. This year we also asked marketers to rate the effectiveness of social media platforms. We found that even though social media usage is up, marketers are still uncertain about its effectiveness.
Click to tweet: Though B2C marketers’ social media usage has increased, they are uncertain about its effectiveness #CMIcontent
B2C marketers plan to increase content marketing budgets
Sixty percent of B2C marketers expect their organization’s content marketing budget to increase over the next 12 months — up from 55 percent last year. Perhaps even more interesting is that 69 percent of the least effective B2C marketers plan to increase their budget, compared with 55 percent of the most effective.
Click to tweet: 60% of B2C marketers expect their company’s #contentmarketing budget to increase over the next 12 months #CMIcontent
Organizations are creating more content
Seventy-two percent of B2C marketers said they are producing more content now, compared with a year ago. That number is even higher for the most effective marketers (77 percent) and those who have a documented content marketing strategy (81 percent).
Click to tweet: 72% of B2C marketers said they are producing more content now than they did a year ago. #CMIcontent
To learn more about the changing landscape of B2C content marketing and get additional insights on what differentiates the marketers who are most effective, download the full report.
B2C marketers: We’d love to hear from you. Does this match what you are experiencing? What other questions do you have? Let us know in the comments.