Only a quarter of marketing professionals believe their B2B content marketing strategy is effective
Most B2B content is missing the mark, according to a January research study by Heinz Marketing and ON24. The study polled more than 150 B2B marketing professionals across various roles, industries and organization sizes.
Just one in four respondents believe that their content marketing strategy is effective. One in five reported feeling very or extremely confident that they’re creating relevant content. The report found a majority of B2B content isn’t driving results and marketers lack confidence in their ability to accurately measure their efforts.
Thirteen percent of respondents are highly confident in their ability to measure the impact of their content marketing in 2017, but that dropped to about 3% this year.
The downward trend in content marketing effectiveness extends to B2B marketers’ confidence in their ability to drive desired revenue results. Over 65% of marketing professionals claim to be somewhat confident or not confident at all in driving revenue.
The survey also measured the most important content engagement metrics, finding that lead conversion is the top choice at 39.5%, followed by sales opportunity and conversion (34%), sales contribution (6.8%), sales influence (6.1%), clicks (5.4%) and likes (2%).
Heinz and ON24’s qualitative research also revealed that marketers prioritize engagement, personalization, and successfully aligning and integrating marketing, sales and customer channels.
Julian Zeng is omni-channel content manager at the American Marketing Association. He may be reached at jzeng@ama.org.