The newly released 12th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report highlights how B2B brands are waking up to the power of content marketing due, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic, and are increasingly investing in the approach.
Some 43% of B2B marketers say their company's 2021 content marketing budget increased over the 2020 budget. Moreover, 66% expect their 2022 content marketing budget to increase over the 2021 budget.
Again produced by MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute, and sponsored by ON24, the annual report offers insights into B2B content marketing benchmarks, budgets, and trends.
Events are likely to be key area of focus in the year ahead, with more than half (52%) of B2B marketers saying they expect their company to increase its investment in in-person events post-vaccine, 39% in hybrid events, and 33% in digital events.
Below are selected charts displaying findings from the various chapters of the current year's B2B report.
Strategy, Opinions & Overall Success
Some 55% of B2B marketers say their content marketing efforts were moderately successful over the past 12 months, 25% say they were very successful, and 4% say they were extremely successful.
Team Structure & Outsourcing
Half of B2B marketers say their company outsources some content marketing activities.
Large companies are much more likely to outsource content marketing activities compared with small companies.
Content Creation & Distribution
B2B marketers say the content assets that produced the best results in the last 12 months were virtual events/ webinars/online courses, research reports, short articles/posts, and ebooks/whitepapers.
Metrics & Goals
B2B marketers say the top goals content marketing has helped them achieve are creating brand awareness and building credibility/trust.
Budgets & Spending
Most B2B marketers say their company spends less than half of its total marketing budget on content marketing.
Looking Forward
Respondents say changes to SEO/search algorithms will be the most important content-marketing related area for B2B organizations in 2021 and 2022.
Full Report: 2022 B2B Content Marketing Research: Benchmarks, Budgets, Trends
About the report: The online survey from which the results of this report were generated was emailed to a sample of marketers using lists from CMI and MarketingProfs. A total of 1,275 recipients from around the globe—representing a full range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes—replied to the survey during July 2021. This report presents the findings from 810 respondents who work for B2B or B2B-B2C hybrid companies and who are involved in content marketing.
