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B2B marketing organizations are now spending more than 25 percent of their budgets on the development, delivery and promotion of content to drive business leads, influence customer markets and grow brand presence and authority. Sales and channel organizations want more effective content marketing programs to prime new business pipelines and upsell and cross-sell customers. Marketers are striving to become facile and efficient publishers so they can build viral awareness, create more meaningful customer engagement, and underscore their value propositions and marketing claims.
Yet despite increased spending, most companies are still in the early stages of building the necessary strategies, processes, competencies, and best practices for effective content marketing. Too many organizations are still engaged in random acts of content development, without having implemented cohesive and effective strategies, customer-centric themes and platforms, efficient publishing and delivery capabilities, or the necessary content performance tracking systems.
The CMO Council’s Content ROI Center is a new strategic interest community dedicated to the evolving discipline of content marketing. The center will provide new reports, whitepapers and case studies on content marketing best practices, trends and challenges.
- Effective strategies for ensuring relevance and engagement
- The power and potential of peer-driven affinity networks
- Tools and approaches for performance and ROI measurement
- Content channel development and tracking
- Social and SEO optimization
- Talent, resource, and organizational requirements
- Syndication, proliferation, and consumption strategies
As part of our new special interest community, the CMO Council is initiating the Content Performance Audit. The council will work with select B2B companies that are making significant investments in content marketing to analyze and evaluate current practices and help elevate content ROI. Learnings will also be used on an aggregate basis to develop new best-practice findings.
The Audit will include a deep dive into your content marketing strategies and practices to help you measure the performance of your investments, address key issues within your organization, and elevate your return on content. We’ll help you answer important question, including:
- Is your content relevant, informative and engaging to customers and prospects??
- Does your content influence buyer specification and induce purchase?
- Is your content being used, referenced, sourced and quoted online and offline?
- How are you maximizing the reach and impact of your digital content?
- To what degree is your content being used, modified and adapted in the field?
- Is it driving lead flow, executive conversation, and sufficient return on investment?
If you’re interested in learning more about the Content Performance Audit, click here.
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David Mahder - Aetna, Inc., SVP Strategic Marketing and Consumer Insight
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Nicky Holmes - Accenture South Africa, Marketing Director
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Vitika S. Banerjee - TPG Wholesale Pvt. Ltd., Chief Marketing Officer
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BtoB Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing. Content Marketing Institute 62 percent of companies outsource their content marketing, up 7 percent from last year. Mashable 40 percent of U.S. tablet owners read newspapers and magazines on their devices. comScore More than $40 billion will be spent on different forms of content marketing in 2012, with website content generating substantial investments. Customer Content Council Google’s Android holds a 68 percent share of the smart phone market, versus 17 percent by Apple as of the second quarter of 2012. IDC LinkedIn generates more leads for B2B companies than Facebook, Twitter or blogs individually. Yet only 47 percent of B2B marketers say they use LinkedIn vs. 90 percent on Facebook. Inside View Interesting content is a top 3 reason people follow brands on social media. Content+ There were 16.3 billion explicit core web searches during September 2012. Google ranked first in market share with 66.7 percent, followed by Microsoft (15.9 percent), Yahoo! (12.2 percent), Ask Network (3.5 percent) and AOL (1.8 percent). comScore 60 percent of marketers plan to increase their spending on Content Marketing over the next 12 months. Content Marketing Institute Social media sites and blogs reach 8 out of 10 of all U.S. Internet users and account for 23% of all time spent online. Content Marketing Institute A majority of smartphone users now access travel content on their devices. comScore Half of all U.S. feature phone subscribers switch to smartphones when the buy a new device. comScore One in four consumers in Japan now own a smartphone. comScore 90% of consumers find custom content useful and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. TMG Custom Media Blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. Content+ B2B companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month on average than non-blogging firms. Social Media B2B The average cost to generate a lead through inbound marketing ($143) is about half the average for outbound marketing ($373). G+ In order of magnitude, the most prevalent form of content being developed by marketers are: article postings (79 percent), social media (74 percent), blogs (65 percent), e-newsletters (63 percent), case studies (58 percent), live events (56 percent), online videos (52 percent), and whitepapers (51 percent). Content Marketing Institute Viewings of online video reached an all-time high of 188 million users watching 37.7 billion online videos in August 2012. comScore 90% of b2b marketers are doing some form of content marketing, and b2b marketers spend on average 26% of their marketing budgets on content. The most effective content marketers spend twice as much as their less effective peers on content development, and consider buying stage when developing content. B2BMarketingInsider 61% of US Marketers Use Social Media to Increase Lead Generation and 55% of Buyers Search for Information on Social Media. Social Media B2B 9 out of 10 organizations market with content marketing. Content Marketing Institute On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their goals. Content Marketing Institute Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing. Content Marketing Institute The average company (1000 employees or more) has 178 “social media assets” (Twitter handles, employee blogs, etc.)–yet only 25% of companies offer social business training to their employees. Marketing Easy B2b marketers believe social media is critical to organic search success. Marketers rate social media as the second-most imporant factor (64%) in search, behind only strong content (82%). BtoB Magazine Although Facebook is the most important social media lead generation tool for b2c marketers (with 77% saying they had had acquired a customer through Facebook, compared to 60% for a company blog), among B2B companies, LinkedIn was the most effective, with 65% having acquired a customer through the professional network, followed by company blogs (60%), Facebook (43%), and Twitter (40%). Marketing Charts Content goes viral when it spreads beyond a particular sphere of influence and spreads across the social web via ordinarily people sharing with their friends. AdAge The median ratio of Facebook views to shares (is) merely 9-to-1. This means that for every Facebook share, only nine people visited the story. Even the largest stories on Facebook are the product of lots of intimate sharing—not one person sharing and hundreds of thousands of people clicking. AdAge 94% said C-suite social media participation enhances a brand image. eMarketer 82% of employees say they trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media. eMarketer 90% of b2b marketers do some form of content marketing. Smart Insights 26% of b2b marketing budgets are invested in content. Smart Insights 60% of b2b marketers say they plan to spend more on content marketing in the coming year. Smart Insights Small businesses, on average, spend twice the share of their lead generation budget (43%) on inbound marketing as do large companies (21%). Econsultancy 53 percent of companies planning to use content marketing will outsource part or all of their campaigns in 2012. Sagefrog Marketing Group The web has given rise to new markets that have leveraged the increased availability of information to learn about new products and services, and 89 percent of consumers start purchase research by consulting search results. Fleishman-Hilliard Just 16 percent of Americans believe ads on the web are effective at compelling them to convert, suggesting organic content has more merit. AYTM Market Research 97 percent of content marketers said they’ve made it a goal to more effectively target and influence convertible audiences with content. PointRoll 92 percent of marketers believe content is effective for SEO. Marketing Sherpa 60 percent of B2B decision makers said exposure to branded content is critical in their decisions to launch new solutions, products or services throughout their company. Content Marketing Institute 57 percent of companies using blog content marketing have acquired customers with their content. SalesChase Buyers' top complaints about content: 85% of buyers say content is neither useful, relevant, nor aligned with needs of people in the buying decision. IDG Connect The availability of product and service information on the web and through social networks has fundamentally transformed the marketing and sales funnel, putting pressure on Marketing and Sales to align both process and content/messages. Aberdeen Group |
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The Definitive Guide to Integrating Social Media and Email Marketing - HubSpot Optimizing Content Creation for Conversions - Content Lead How to Get Social Media Influencers Talking About You - Digital Marketing Depot 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends - CMI: Content Marketing Institute How to Attract and Retain Customers with Content Now - CMI: Content Marketing Institute Content Marketing ROI - Kapost, in partnership with Eloqua 11 Case Studies Prove Content Marketing ROI - Barn Raisers Making the Case for Shorter Content - IDG Connect Tell Them What They Want To Hear - Content Marketing Institute Becoming the New Content Marketer- Capturing Consumers’ Attention in a More Social World - Content Marketing Institute 2012 B2B Marketing Mix - Sagefrog Marketing Group Marketing Tools Study 2012 - PointRoll |
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