We said it before but content marketing is the backbone of a successful inbound marketing campaign. It can elevate a brand above the thousands of marketing messages and become the fuel for engagement with customers.
Great content not only promotes brand awareness but also creates a positive reputation and a brand preference. But! It’s not a short-term-strategy and it will take a while to see the first results. However, the more content you create and the more you engage with your customers the more the effects will multiply.
And since Google now rewards high quality and relevant content it will become one of the most important marketing tactics for success. Without a solid content strategy SEO tactics will become ineffective and search visibility will decrease. As inbound marketers, we want to provide users with the most relevant content possible, so it makes sense that social shares should contribute to search results ranking. Businesses will increasingly use social media to gain brand recognition, brand authority, and improve customer insights.
According to B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks Report, 93 percent of B2B marketers used content marketing in 2014 and 42% considered their strategy to be effective (up from 36 percent in 2013).
Here are some other data from the same report:
B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics.
Of these tactics, 92 percent cite social media content (other than blogs) as the most used, followed by eNewsletters (83 percent), and articles on their website (81 percent). Infographics as a tactic saw the biggest rise in usage (from 51 percent last year to 62 percent this year). Illustrations/photos was a new option this year.
Search engine marketing tops the list of paid distribution methods
For the first time, marketers were asked which paid advertising methods they use to promote/distribute content — and of those, which they consider to be most effective. On average, B2B marketers are using three paid advertising methods, with 80 percent using at least one. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tops the list as the most used (and most effective).
While the adoption rates for the “newer” paid methods of native advertising and content discovery tools isn’t very high, yet, 36 percent of those who use them say they are effective (giving them a higher confidence rating than marketers give for the more established paid methods of “print or other offline promotion” and “traditional online banner ads”).
Peter Foubert, BBN Belgium