Content marketing overtaking print, TV, radio, and events
Targeting Consumers with Content
According to a B2BOnline, more than 80% of business-to-business marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategies. Content marketing now exceeds event marketing and public relations in the B2B marketer’s toolbox, according to a survey conducted by HiveFire Inc. B2B marketers are also now twice as likely to use content marketing as they are to buy print, TV and radio advertising.
The “B2B Marketing Trends 2011 Survey” polled 366 marketers in August 2011. Participants included business owners as well as marketing executives and marketing specialists. For purposes of the survey, “content marketing” is the creation and publication of original content, such as blog posts, photos, videos, website resource pages, case studies or white papers to enhance a brand’s visibility.
Because content production is less expensive than many other types of media buys, companies are incorporating content marketing more heavily into their lead generation marketing strategies, all while optimizing the content for search engines, in order to take advantage of the long term benefits of online content publication.
78% of respondents cited driving sales/leads as the most important marketing objective for their organization. This was the number one goal of the polled marketers but they indicated that they were challenged by budget and staffing limitations. 28% of respondents cited limited budget as a top marketing challenge. 23% cited limited staff as a major concern. The survey results suggest that these are among the reasons content marketing is increasingly utilized by these companies as a cost-effective method of generating leads.
* photo via alexmandossian.com
