According to Semrush’s State of Content Marketing 2022 Global Report, there were 22% more searches regarding “What is content marketing?” than in 2021.
More and more people are becoming more aware of content marketing than ever before.
The report also mentions that people were curious to learn more about the importance of content marketing — the next most-asked question on Google.
This raises the question of how companies see content marketing and whether they’re fully using its power. After deep diving into several reports around the status quo of B2B content marketing, we gathered some insights on how organizations develop, document, and implement content marketing strategies.
In this article and infographic, we’re going to summarise these learnings for you.
The importance of B2B content marketing
At Contensify, we’ve experienced the power of content marketing first-hand. Organically, we have been able to consistently grow our subscriber list, social media followers – and more importantly, our client list.
Content marketing can generate traffic, improve your brand value, increase conversions, improve your ROI, and build trust among your target audience – when done right.
Some benefits of content marketing:
- It helps to nurture and convert leads
- It makes it easy to educate your target audience
- It helps to use other marketing channels to their full extent
But as we started to explore the use of B2B content marketing across organisations with specific questions, here’s what we uncovered.
Is content marketing a part of your marketing strategy?
Around 97% of companies have adopted content marketing as a part of their marketing strategy. Only about 3% of companies are not using content marketing.
If you’re looking to get into content marketing strategy, starting early is always beneficial, as it will allow you to get ahead of your competitors.
Don’t let a good content marketing strategy be an afterthought — your most successful competitors started their strategies early. And you should too!
Do you have a documented content marketing strategy?
About 57% of companies mentioned that their content marketing was successful because they had a documented content marketing strategy. This means they have a proper plan in place and know what their next steps look like.
On the other hand, 40% of companies didn’t have much success because they didn’t have a documented content strategy.
Many people just starting into content marketing create content on the go — mostly about their products and services. Many of those we’ve spoken to at Contensify say they don’t have a strategy.
The majority of the companies surveyed reported greater success after putting a dedicated plan in place. Consider a documented content marketing strategy if you don’t have one already. Keep in mind, a high-level strategy includes metrics, goals, key results, content plans, and buyer personas.
How would you rate your content marketing strategy’s maturity and complexity?
The results are quite interesting on this one. Only 55% — just over half — of companies rated their marketing strategy as advanced or fairly developed, while a large percentage, about 42%, rated their content marketing strategy as in its first steps. The remaining 3% of companies don’t know the complexity of their marketing strategy.
Most businesses find it difficult to continue content marketing because they tend to follow a product-only approach. So the maturity level is also low.
Businesses need to have a proper understanding of what content marketing is and set clear goals to execute a strategy properly.
Do you need a content marketing strategy?
The short answer is yes! If you want to increase your marketing results, you should definitely experiment with content marketing.
The most important benefit of content marketing is that it helps you reach your goals, raise awareness around your products, and improve your brand image simultaneously.
Do you want to adopt content marketing as a part of your strategy in 2023? Still trying to figure out how to get started? Contact us today.
