In this week’s Content & Coffee with Brafton, Stefanie D’aulizio discusses B2B content marketing faults and what media types resonate with audiences most. She references data from a new CMO Council report.
B2B brands understand they must create web content to achieve some of their more essential marketing objectives. Whether companies want to increase organic visits to their websites or bolster returning visitor metrics, content can help.
However, the CMO Council’s report shows that there’s still a critical need for companies to become more disciplined. Insights show B2Bs struggle to develop specific content strategies, effective delivery processes and content analytics reporting programs, despite spending 25 percent of their annual budgets on content marketing.
In fact, the study also found most companies lack an understanding of how to engage their markets with custom content. CMO Council does offer a solution though: well-conceived, customer-centric themes that inspire ongoing efforts. Brands that develop editorial calendars and content performance tracking processes will improve web content marketing in the future.
While the CMO Council does spend a lot of time scolding B2Bs for their content faults, the report also offers some content types proven to drive success. The data suggests that industry white papers, customer case studies, analyst reports and independent product reviews are the most effective marketing collateral for business-facing brands.
Content marketing comes with a lot of challenges – especially for B2Bs. Typically, prospects take longer to go through the sales cycle because transactions are often much larger, so marketers must create content for people throughout the sales funnel. CMO Council’s advice should resonate – different media types speak to different needs. For companies still producing only one kind of content type for their web presence, it’s time to mix it up and put together a few new projects.
Catch you next week and happy content marketing.
