Study Shows B2B Marketers Increase Spending, Usage of Content Marketing

CLEVELAND, Dec. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs shows that content marketing is now responsible for 26% of total B2B marketing spending. In addition, 60% of marketers plan to increase content marketing budgets in 2012, with a full nine of 10 organizations surveyed now using content marketing.

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The most popular content marketing tactics include articles (79%), social media (excluding blogs) (74%), blogs (65%), and eNewsletters (63%). 

"One of the most interesting findings was what we term the 'confidence gap,' in which marketers use tactics but are unsure of how effective they are," says Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute and co-author of Managing Content Marketing. "While uncertainty still exists, marketers are becoming increasingly more confident in the content marketing tactics they are using. This increase is especially notable with blogs, case studies, videos and webinars/webcasts."

Other notable findings include:

• On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals.
• Every major social media channel is seeing increased adoption, often by 15-20%.
• 60% report that they plan to increase spending on content marketing over the next 12 months, compared to 51% in the previous study.
• Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing.
• Last year, only 55% of marketers used outsourcing in some capacity. This year, 62% of B2B marketers use a mix of insourced and outsourced content.

B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends is the second annual survey from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs about content marketing in the business-to-business (B2B) space to date. Over 1000 B2B marketers from diverse industries and a wide range of company sizes were surveyed in August 2011. The full content marketing research report can be found at the Content Marketing Institute.

About the Content Marketing Institute

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) teaches marketers how to own their media channels instead of having to rent them through advertising. We do this through events like Content Marketing World, media properties like Chief Content Officer magazine, and strategic consulting and research for some of the best known brands in the world.

About MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs helps the smartest marketers worldwide turn even the toughest marketing challenges into success stories. More than 400,000 members rely on its free daily publications, in-depth how-to reports, online courses, and in-person events (and more!) for actionable know-how designed to make marketers both smarter and more effective.

SOURCE Content Marketing Institute

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