Nearly three-quarters of B2B marketers believe that content marketing is going to become more important for brands over the next 12 months. The impact of social media and blogging, as well as Google´s focus on content, will make businesses more dependent on delivering quality content.
According to the latest research by B2B Marketing, none of the respondents thought that content marketing would lose any ground, while 27% stated that its prominence is likely to remain unchanged over the next year. Overall, marketers generally agreed that content marketing is unrivalled in its effectiveness for engaging customers.
When asked about the most common types of content format they used, marketers listed press releases, blog posts and case studies as the top three. However, when asked to assess which formats were the most effective, the top three was quite different, with case studies at the top, followed by white papers and video, the research revealed.
As many as 56% of respondents saw an increase in sales as a result of their content marketing strategy, compared to 15% who reported no increase. However, some 29% stated that they did not know how content marketing affected their business, confirming another key finding from the survey – the fact that the biggest challenge for marketers is measuring performance and ROI.
When setting their primary objectives for content marketing, respondents said that they were looking to boost brand positioning, to generate demand and to engage audiences, B2B Marketing discovered.