The Content Conundrum

Several departments across a B2B organization rely on content marketing, from social media to event marketing, public relations to product marketing. Content marketers who have a documented strategy are eight times more likely (60 percent versus 7 percent) to rate themselves as being effective content marketers versus those who have no strategy, written or otherwise. While research shows that having a documented content marketing strategy is the key to success, according to the B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America study, just 35 percent of content marketers had one, although 48 percent said that they had a strategy, it just wasn’t documented.

Content can be hard to come up with. In fact, according to research by Kapost, nearly four in 10 B2B marketers said it was difficult or somewhat difficult to come up with ideas for content marketing. Perhaps this could be due to the fact that even though 75 percent of executives say their primary purpose for seeking content is to find ideas, 93 percent of marketers say the intent of their content is to directly promote their products or services.

With so much pressure to generate meaningful and relevant content we found some really good tips from kissmetrics. We’ve outlined them here but encourage you to check out the article for more detail.

1. Create original content
2. Always focus on creating strong headlines
3. Make your content actionable
4. Be able to provide answers
5. Be accurate in your reporting and sourcing of information
6. Create engaging and thought provoking content
7. Communicate better by adding images and video
8. Write short and pointed content
9. Make continual updates to your website or blog

We’d love to hear your tips for creating great content. Share them with us on our Facebook page or tweet us.

BULLETS

• 35 percent of B2B marketers say they have a documented content marketing strategy while 48 percent say they have a content marketing strategy, but it’s not documented. contentmarketinginstitute.com

• Content marketing is 62 percent less expensive than traditional marketing, according to Demand Metric.  imaginepub.com

• Brand awareness is the goal of 84 percent of B2B marketers, according to CMI’s 2015 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks and Trends.  imaginepub.com

• 87 percent of millennials agree that their smartphone never leaves their site, day or night and 60 percent believe that in the next five years everything will be done on mobile devices. customerthink.com

• 78 percent of companies will try / are trying to differentiate through customer experience in 2015. econsultancy.com