Documenting Content Marketing Delivers ROI Tracking Success for B2B Marketers
If you can effectively track your content marketing success, you will be able to better use the strategy in your marketing efforts.
If you can effectively track your content marketing success, you will be able to better use the strategy in your marketing efforts.
Most business-to-business (B2B) marketers have latched onto the idea of launching content marketing strategies. In fact, the North American Content Marketing Institute found in its recent study that 86 percent were invested in the idea of using this method of marketing.
The survey, which included 1,800 B2B marketers, revealed the popularity of content marketing. However, nearly 50 percent stated that they had no documentation method related to their strategies. While these marketers are realizing successes, they could be doing better if they documented their strategy and followed it closely. The 60 percent of marketers who rated their tactics as highly effective are documenting their strategy and closely following it. Only 32 percent of those that have a verbal content strategy rate themselves highly, according to the survey.
It’s not uncommon for marketers to struggle to monitor their return on investment (ROI). In fact, only 21 percent say they track their content marketing ROI with any success. However, 35 percent of those who document said they are successful in tracking their ROI.
The B2B space is large on LinkedIn. According to the survey, 94 percent of B2B marketers use LinkedIn with their content marketing strategies. A close second at 88 percent is Twitter, followed by Facebook (84 percent), YouTube (48 percent), and SlideShare (42 percent). When it comes to paid advertising, the most popular choice is search engine marketing followed by print and other offline ads.
According to the survey, marketers are spending around 28 percent of their budgets on content marketing. Increasing the percent spent on content marketing results in greater success: those dedicating 37 percent of their budget to content marketing see the most success.
For an example of a company that used content marketing to great success, look no further than Ongoing Operations. This Virginia-based company is a provider of cloud computing services for credit unions. They had employees create blogs that focused on what the clients need to know, what they wanted, and what could expand their knowledge in the cloud computing space.
The result of Ongoing Operations’ content marketing campaign was dramatic: Two years after launching the blogs, they were generating 10 times the amount of Web leads then they were prior to the blogs and have become an authority in their space. With this level of success, it’s easy to see why nearly 90 percent of marketers are using content marketing.
Once you take the time and build the process for measuring and monitoring your efforts in content marketing, you will start realize better results. In my next installation on ClickZ, I will share more about developing a solid content marketing strategy and unique pieces of content that will help you make your mark in the world of social media marketing.