Fun Facts from the 2014 B2B Content Marketing Report

These facts and figures from the 2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America Report showcase why content marketing is crucial – particularly when it comes to B2B.

For the fourth straight year, MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute have released this B2B content marketing report and the results are quite impressive.

Once again, the numbers have increased year-over-year and B2B content marketing is becoming both more widely used and more structured. Below are a few of the key findings when it comes to B2B content marketing and some analyses of these findings.

93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing

There’s not much to analyze when it comes to this stat. Long story short, if you are not engaged in content marketing in a B2B company, you should be.

66% of B2B marketers with a ‘Most Effective’ content marketing rating have a content strategy

A content strategy is going to be your best friend when it comes to content marketing. Every brand’s strategy may differ; you are going to need to test content across every channel to see what works best. At the end of the day, however, there needs to be a clear strategy in place in order to measure the effectiveness and success that your content marketing drives.

‘Less Effective’ marketers do not have a designated content marketing point person

86% of ‘Most Effective’ content marketing companies have one individual overseeing nothing by the brand’s content marketing initiatives. By contrast, only 46% of ‘Less Effective’ companies have a point person when it comes to this. This ties in closely with the need to have a strategy in place. If you are going to take your content marketing seriously, then do just that. Have a strategy and department (one or several people) devoted to making the program successful.

Social media is a key area of focus

To all those naysayers who speak out against the use of social media when it comes to B2B brands, the numbers are in and all signs point to the contrary. 87% of B2B content marketing programs use social media as a means of sharing content to broader audiences and driving results from a strategy. In fact, sharing content on social networks is the most widely used tactic when it comes to content marketing.

55% or more of B2B marketers are using five of the main social networks

91% use LinkedIn, 85% use Twitter, 81% use Facebook, 73% use YouTube and 55% use Google+. More importantly, LinkedIn is seen as the most important network with YouTube ranking second in terms of importance (not use).

‘Most Effective’ brands are using content marketing for revenue-generating goals

While Brand Awareness tops the charts (82%) for the most common goal among marketers, Lead Generation comes in second at 74% followed closely by Customer Acquisition at 71%.

Content marketing is not done growing

58% of B2B marketers plan on increasing their involvement and budgets for content marketing in the next twelve months. Compare that to only 1% of marketers who plan on decreasing their budgets.

There is a lot more where that came from in this year’s report, so take a look.

Let us know what you think is most significant finding! Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!