What differentiates B-to-B companies who carry out successful content marketing initiatives compared to those whose efforts are less impactful?
It isn’t an easy question to answer in a very quantitative way, but the Content Marketing Institute, working in conjunction with MarketingProfs, has reached some conclusions based on a survey it conducted in June and July of 2018 with nearly 800 North American content marketers. (This was the 9th year that the annual survey has been fielded.)
Beginning with a “self-graded” question, respondents were asked to rate the success of their company’s content marketing endeavors. A total of 27% of respondents rated their efforts as either very or extremely successful, compared to 22% who rated their results at the other end of the scale (minimally successful or not successful at all).
The balance of the CMI survey questions focused on this subset of ~380 respondents on both ends of the spectrum, in order to determine how content marketing efforts and results were happening differently between the two groups of marketers.
… And there were some fundamental differences discovered. To begin with, more than 90% of the self-described “successful” group of B-to-B content marketers reported that they prioritize their audience’s informational needs more highly than sales and promotional messaging.
By comparison, just 56% of the other group prioritize in this manner — instead favoring company-focused messaging in greater proportions.
Other disparities determined between the two groups of marketers relate to the extent of activities undertaken in three key analytical areas:
- The use of primary research
- The use of customer conversations and panels
- Database analysis
Also importantly, ~93% of the respondents in the “successful” group described their organization as being “highly committed” to content marketing, compared to just ~35% of the respondents in the second group who feel this way.
Moreover, this disparity extends to self-described skill levels when it comes to implementing content marketing programs. More than nine in ten of the “successful” CMS group of respondents characterize themselves as “sophisticated” or “mature” in terms of their knowledge level.
For the other group of respondents, it’s just one in ten.
Despite these differences in perceived skills, it turns out that content marketing dissemination practices are pretty uniform across both groups of companies. Tactics used by both include sponsored content on social media platforms, search engine marketing, and web banner advertising. It’s in the messaging itself — as well as the analysis of performance — where the biggest differences appear to be.
For more information on findings from the 2018 Content Marketing Survey, click here.
Nones Notes 