Greetings Content Marketers,

We have good news to report! B2B content marketers in North America are making strides: 42% consider themselves effective, up from 36% last year.

Moreover, we also can begin to understand why marketers are feeling more confident: For the first time, we asked marketers whether they have a documented content strategy (44% do) and a person who oversees content marketing strategy (73% do). Our findings tell us that there are distinct differences between those who have a strategy and those who do not. Marketers who do are not only more effective but also less challenged with every aspect of content marketing.

Even though we’ve made great strides, the industry is clearly still in the early adoption phase. However, some marketers are seeing substantial success. Read on to find out what a best-in-class content marketer does differently and delve into many other findings as well.

On with the content marketing revolution!

93% of B2B marketers use content marketing.

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42% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing.

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Profile of a best-in-class B2B content marketer.

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44% of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy.

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• B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective (66% vs. 11%).
• 48% of smaller B2B organizations (10-99 employees) have a documented content strategy, compared with 41% of large organizations (1,000+ employees).

73% of B2B organizations have someone in place to oversee content marketing strategy.

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• The majority of the most effective B2B marketers (86%) have someone who oversees content marketing strategy; however, only 46% of less effective marketers do.
• Small companies (10-99 employees) are more likely than large companies (1,000+ employees) to have someone who oversees content marketing strategy (78% vs. 58%).

73% of B2B content marketers are producing more content than they did one year ago.

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• 78% of the most effective B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago, compared with 57% of their least effective peers.
• B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are creating more content than they did one year ago, compared with those who do not have a documented strategy (80% vs. 66%).

B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics.

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• Tactic usage has remained relatively consistent when compared with last year.
• Infographics has seen the largest year-over- year increase in usage. Last year, 38% of B2B marketers were using infographics, compared with 51% this year.

B2B content marketers have increasing confidence with most tactics.

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• For the fourth year in a row, B2B marketers overall have rated in-person events as the most effective tactic they use.
• Best-in-class B2B marketers, however, rate blogs as the most effective tactic (79%), which surpasses how they rate in-person events (76%); only 29% of their least effective peers rate blogs as effective.

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B2B marketers are using social media more frequently than last year.

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• B2B content marketers use an average of 6 social media platforms, up from 5 last year.
• B2B content marketers are using every social media platform listed here more often than they did last year.
• Social media platforms that had the biggest increase in use from last year to this year are SlideShare, Google+, and Instagram.

Although adoption rates for social media are high, B2B marketers are unsure of its effectiveness.

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• After LinkedIn, large companies (1,000+ employees) consider YouTube to be second most effective, whereas small companies (10-99 employees) say SlideShare and Twitter are second most effective.
• 49% of small companies consider SlideShare effective, compared with 38% of large companies.

Brand awareness continues to be the top organizational goal for B2B content marketing.

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• B2B marketers have consistently cited brand awareness as their top goal for the last four years.
• 80% of the most effective B2B content marketers cite lead generation as a goal, compared with 64% of their least effective peers.

B2B marketers have cited Web traffic and sales lead quality as their top content marketing metrics for the last three years.

• B2B marketers cited each of these criterion a bit more frequently than they did last year, with the exception of direct sales, qualitative feedback from customers, inbound links, and increased customer loyalty, all of which decreased very slightly. Subscriber growth was a new option.
• The least effective B2B marketers place more importance on direct sales, citing it as their fourth top criterion (tied with social media sharing). The most effective marketers rank direct sales as their eighth most important criterion.
• Over the last four years, direct sales has consistently gone down in importance as a measurement criterion.

58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget over the next 12 months.

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• More B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budgets this year, compared with last year (54%).
• All B2B marketers plan to increase content marketing spending at similar rates, even those who rate themselves as least effective.
• More small companies (10-99 employees) than large companies (1,000+ employees) are planning to increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months (60% vs. 52%).

On average, 30% of B2B marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing.

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• The average amount allocated to B2B content marketing rose from 26% in 2012 to 33% in 2013, and has now settled firmly in between.
• The most effective B2B marketers spend a higher percentage (39%) of their budgets on content marketing than their least effective peers do (16%).

Large B2B companies outsource content creation more frequently than small companies.

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• There has been no change from last year in how much content B2B marketers create in-house and how much they outsource.
• There are no real differences between how much content the most effective and the least effective B2B marketers outsource.

Writing and design are the two functions most likely to be outsourced.

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B2B marketers most often tailor content based on industry trends.

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• Nearly all (95%) B2B marketers segment their content in at least one way.
• The most effective B2B marketers tailor content more often by every category listed here.

Challenges have remained fairly consistent year over year.

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• Aside from lack of time, B2B marketers consistently cite producing enough content and producing the kind of content that engages as their top challenges.
• Challenges are fairly similar to those of years past; however, B2B marketers are gaining strides in their ability to produce a variety of content.

Marketers at large companies face different challenges than marketers at smaller companies.

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