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Marketing

Spotlight Report

Group Partner

Technology
Marketing

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SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS
Top-5 Trends in Content Marketing

Lead generation is by far the number one goal of content marketing, followed by thought
leadership and market education. Brand awareness is now the third most mentioned goal,
taking the place of last years number three goal: customer acquisition.

Companies with a documented content strategy are much more likely to be effective than
those without a strategy. Only 30 percent of companies have a formally documented
content strategy.

The most mentioned content marketing challenge is finding enough time and resources
to create content. The next biggest content marketing challenge is producing enough
content, followed by producing truly engaging content to serve the needs of marketing
programs.

Content marketing ROI remains difficult to measure. Only a minority of respondents

consider themselves at least somewhat successful at tracking ROI.

LinkedIn tops the list of the most effective social media platforms for distributing content
marketing. The runner ups are Twitter (moving up one rank compared to last year) and
YouTube (moving down from second to third place).

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Content marketing goals

When asked to identify their top 3 goals, lead generation is by a wide margin, the number one goal
of content marketing (59 percent), as it was in last years survey. Thought leadership and market
education follows with a distant 43 percent. Surprisingly, brand awareness is now the third most
selected goal (40 percent), taking the place of last years number three goal: customer acquisition
(which dropped to only 28 percent this year).

59%

Lead generation

43%
40%

Thought leadership / market education

Brand awareness

33%
28%
28%
24%

Lead nurturing
Engagement
Customer acquisition
Website traffic

17%
16%

Customer loyalty / retention

Revenue

9%
3%
1%

Social media engagement

Channel enablement
Other
0%

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10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Content Marketing Strategy

A whopping 72 percent of marketers have a content strategy in place. But only 30 percent have it
formally documented.

Have a content marketing strategy,

but it is not documented.

42%
30% | Yes it is documented
42% | Yes it is not documented
21% | No
7% | Not sure

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Content Marketing Effectiveness

Companies with a documented content strategy are much more likely to be very or extremely
effective (36 percent) than those without a documented strategy (11 percent). Most companies
consider their content marketing at least somewhat effective.

0%

Not at all effective

9%
27%

11%

Slightly effective

41%

Somewhat effective

9%

Very effective

2%

Extremely effective

0%

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29%

7%

Companies with a documented content strategy

Companies without a documented content strategy

12%

4%

Not sure

10%

49%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Most used content marketing tactics

Blogging, social media and case studies are the most routinely used content marketing tactics and formats.
Blogging
Social media
Case studies
White papers
Press releases
Customer testimonials
eNewsletters
Videos
Online articles
Webinars / webcasts
In-person events
Infographics
Analyst / research reports
Slideware / presentations
Product demos
eBooks
Microsites
Community management
Polling / research
Advertorials
Mobile content
Print magazines
Online reviews
Virtual tradeshows / online events
Licensed / syndicated content
Branded apps
Podcasts
Visual content (cartoons, memes)
Printed books
We don't use any
Games
Other

0%
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16%
14%
14%
14%
14%
12%
10%
9%
9%
7%
7%
4%
2%
1%
3%

10%

22%

26%
25%

20%

32%
30%

30%

39%
39%

51%
49%
48%
47%
45%
45%

40%

55%

50%

64%
64%

60%

65%

70%

Content Marketing Challenges

Lack of time / bandwidth to create content
Producing enough content variety / volume

50%

Producing truly engaging content

42%

Measuring content effectiveness

38%

Developing consistent content strategy

34%

Lack of budget to produce content

31%

Talent to produce content

28%

Getting content delivered to the right audiences

27%

Creating buyer and segment-specific content

Integrating content marketing into our
current workflows and technologies
Lack of process and integration
across marketing
Finding right balance between
free and gated content
Localizing content for international markets

26%
22%
19%
18%
16%

Getting executive buy-in

Inability to deliver the right content at
the right moment on any device
Poor content quality

11%

Finding domain experts

10%

Other

4%

15%
12%

0%

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51%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

The number one content

marketing challenge is
having enough time and
bandwidth to create
content (51 percent).
The next biggest content
marketing challenge is
producing enough content
volume (50 percent)
followed by producing truly
engaging content to serve
the needs of marketing
programs (42 percent).
Measuring the effectiveness
of content marketing has
risen from the number
six spot last year (28
percent) to number four
(38 percent) reflecting
increasing pressure to
demonstrate results and
justify investment in
content marketing.

60%

Demographics & Methodology

This survey was conducted from July through September 2014. We collected 634 responses from B2B
marketing professionals. Here is a detailed breakdown of the demographics.

J O B FUNC TION

JOB TITL E

Corporate Marketing

Marketing/Advertising/
Communications/PR

Marketing Communications

CEO/President/Owner

Content Marketing

Consultant

Marketing Operations

Sales

Product or Solutions Marketing

Operations

0%

10%

20%

30%

I N D U S T RY

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

C O M PA N Y S I Z E ( EM PLOYE E S)

Software

30% | 1-10
25% | 11-100

High-Tech

10% | 101-250
8% | 251-500

Advertising / Marketing

6% | 501-1000
Consulting

4% | 1001-2500
3% | 2501-5000

Manufacturing

4% | 5001-10K
0%

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10%

20%

9% | 10K+

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SPONSOR
We would like to thank our sponsor for supporting the Content Marketing Report 2014

IDG Enterprise | www.idgenterprise.com

IDG Enterprise brings together the unique brands (Computerworld, InfoWorld, Network World, CIO,
DEMO, CSO and ITworld) to serve the information needs of our IT and security-focused audiences.
By leveraging the strengths of each individual brand, while simultaneously harnessing their collective
reach and audience affinity, we provide market leadership and media best practices for our marketing
customers to engage their customers across our portfolio.

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