By Kelly Rogan, on 8 May 2015
Content Marketing is one of the most successful current trends in native advertising. Companies seek to captivate their audience naturally, with messages that are not invasive, as in both the Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C).
The goal is to plant added value content in different media or digital media, providing people useful or entertaining information.
70% of B2B marketers have chosen to create more content than anterior year and 94% say the most used social network in distribution is LinkedIn. This fascinating data comes from the study 'B2B Content Marketing - Benchmarks, Budget and Trends 2015' just published by the Content Marketing Institute. They provide data from 5,000 respondents from 109 countries marketing sector.
I will make an approach to the 6 key data points from the report that I consider most significant.
- 86% of companies use Content Marketing. Understanding this concept as "a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content that attracts and retains a clearly defined audience."
- 94% of marketers use LinkedIn as their principal social network. This social platform is the most successful in the distribution of content. Furthermore, its effectiveness ratio is the highest, with 63%.
- 38% effectiveness in meeting all targets. The organizations included in this figure are those that believe that content marketing has helped them to realize their annual targets. In addition, 42% appreciate that this strategy has been useful in fulfilling part of the objectives.
- Documenting the marketing strategy increases its effectiveness by 25%. Only 35% of B2B marketers’ reflect their plan in paper. Unfortunately, this is a factor to be taken into account and that must be developed. Documenting the route guide is essential to the whole team to be aware of what the objectives are, the tools and the right way to go.
- The info graphic is the tactic with a further increase in its use, from 51% to 62% in a single year. In our brain we like info graphics because they are diagrammed and simplify the information graphically. The eyes are drawn to the visual, causing the content to be more attractive to us. For example, bright colors increase the desire to read by 80% according to the book 'The Persuasive Properties of Color'.
- For 84% of companies the main objective is brand awareness. And who does not want to be known by its potential audience? By creating valuable content you’re able to know the organization and to create positive associations with its products and services. Other important objectives are lead generation, 83%, and Engagement 81%.