14.12.2018

B2B-CONTENT-MARKETING 2019: MARKETING DECISION-MAKERS CAN PREPARE FOR THESE BENCHMARKS, BUDGETS & TRENDS

Storytelling, trustful relationships with customers and a target-group oriented approach – these are the most important aspects for marketing according to the current B2B Content Marketing Benchmark 2019. This articles shows that only 42 Percent of Marketing Managers understand their customers.

An important core statement of the report “B2B Content Marketing 2019: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America”, published by the Content Marketing Institute, is that 90% of the B2B content marketers surveyed place the information needs of their target group before the advertising message of their company. This shows that in the coming years, the focus should continue to be on how to reach your target audience – before trying to sell them anything.

 

In addition the report shows, how enterprises in the B2B area can improve their marketing. For example with well-considered Nurturing. 87 percent of B2B marketers use e-mails in their Nurturing process because they can directly provide their target group with information (77 percent). However, only 45 percent of respondents use target group-specific storytelling.

Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America
Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America

As mentioned in the article „Lead Nurturing: 3 Steps to more Leads“ the target group specific storytelling in the Nurturing process is the most successful way to win potential customers as actual customers. You have to put yourself in their shoes, know their needs, motives and pain points in order to understand how to address them. As a result, many marketers miss the opportunity to create additional engagement in the target group. Because only 23 percent use target group communities and participation (Community Building / Audience Participation) to obtain unfiltered information from the target group.

And this is precisely the key to success. Putting oneself in the customer’s shoes, finding similarities in order to talk to them like a like-minded person – this gives marketers not only loyalty but also unfiltered insights.

 

The customer is no longer seen only as a “buyer persona”, but as a real person whose problems are also understood. With this background knowledge, companies can train their sales and marketing departments in such a way that, on the one hand, they can respond more specifically to the customer and, on the other hand, significantly improve the nurturing process.

The basis for this is already set, because 96 percent of the content marketers surveyed agree that they have built credibility and trust with their customers. However, you have to speak to your customers more – because only 42 percent of content marketers understand the needs of their customers.

The commitment to content marketing must be appropriate

In order to address the target group successfully, companies should finally do more content marketing. However, the commitment to this topic is not the same everywhere. One thing is certain: the more sales and marketing departments believe in the content marketing tool and are convinced of this approach, the more marketing success it will bring to the company.

 

And the B2B Content Marketing Report 2019 also shows that the topic of customer communication is in the focus of the leading content marketers. Because 93 percent of those surveyed feel that their company is very committed to content marketing.

Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America
Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America

Content marketing technologies

But which technologies are currently used in companies to control content marketing? What is striking is that companies are initially using content marketing tools for the “simpler” processes such as social media publishing, analytics & email marketing. A complete control of the CMS is so far only controlled by 50 percent of the marketers via such technologies. This has advantages and disadvantages – because not everything can be automated.

Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America
Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America

Benchmarking the target group

The Customer Journey can be long and challenging. Because not every interested user will change their interest in a campaign into an intent to buy. Your only task is to ensure that you’re approaching your customers and guide them with a compass to the best decision for their needs.

Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America
Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America

Imagine your marketing team to be a guide who must point out all important aspects that are useful for decision making.

Content Marketing Budgets

The awareness of investing in content to successfully address target groups has risen significantly in the past year. This is also reflected in company spending. Unlike in areas such as recruiting and content distribution, the money spent on content has risen significantly.

Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America
Source: 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends – North America

You want to get deeper into the topic? Here you can find the complete report B2B Content Marketing 2019: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America with all statistics, details and further background information.

Quelle: iStock / Rawpixel

[plista]