Many marketers are still in the awkward adolescent phase when it comes to the maturity of their content marketing programs. That’s just one of the key findings in the new B2B content marketing research published by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs.
This is the sixth year for one of the most highly-anticipated content marketing research reports in the world. Sponsored by Brightcove, B2B Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America includes findings from 1,521 North American business-to-business (B2B) marketers—just a slice of the thousands of marketers surveyed in 25 industries worldwide.
New this year, we asked marketers to assess their content marketing maturity level. Twenty-nine percent of respondents rate themselves as “adolescent”- having a business case, seeing early success, and becoming more sophisticated with measurement and scaling. Twenty-seven percent rated themselves as “young” – experiencing growing pains, and challenged with creating a cohesive strategy and measurement plan. Only eight percent rated their programs as “sophisticated.” The results showed that, in general, the more mature the organization, the more effective it is at content marketing.
“We also asked marketers whether their organizations know what success or effectiveness looks like when it comes to content marketing. Fifty-five percent said no or were unsure,” explains Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute and author, Content Inc. “We can do better. The research shows that marketers who have clarity around success are more effective at content marketing than those who don’t—they simply get better results.”
Additionally, 76% of B2B organizations plan to produce more content in 2016. And 51% plan to spend more on their content marketing next year. Seventy-two percent say creating more engaging content is their top priority for internal content creators.
“It’s great that organizations want to create more content, but they need to be braver and bolder with that content,” says Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs, and author of Everybody Writes. “They can no longer afford to play it safe. Organizations must focus on telling more authentic stories targeting the specific challenges of their audience.”
Source:Content Marketing Institute
