Here is recent research from Salesforce that reveals the key purposes of content marketing and how exactly they drive businesses to succeed.
Content Marketing: The Top Reasons Why
According to LinkedIn’s research, lead generation drives B2B leaders to implement content marketing; on the other hand, customer loyalty was listed as a minor goal. The following are seven specific goals and the percentages of B2B leaders who want to accomplish these goals:
- Generating leads (71%)
- Thought leadership (50%)
- Gaining new customers (45%)
- Understanding/recognizing the brand (41%)
- Fostering leads (35%)
- Increasing web traffic (28%)
- Improving customer reliability (25%)
Which Types of Content Marketing Works The Best?
Customer testimonials drive content marketing to become successful, says 89% of B2B leaders. Case studies, event details and informative pieces are also effective; 88%, 82% and 80% of B2B leaders believe this respectively. Videos are also successful as content marketing, deem 78% of B2B leaders.
Although the next three effective types of content marketing ranked as the bottom three among B2B leaders, the percentages are still quite high: white papers (78%), product demonstrations (72%) and social media (68%).
Top 5 Challenges of Content Marketing
Content marketing brings in positive results, however B2B leaders continue to face challenges in implementation. Here are their top 5 challenges:
- Not enough time/bandwidth to build content (55%)
- Creating attractive content (49%)
- Struggle to create a variety of content (39%)
- Finding the right people to create the content (35%)
- Reaching the appropriate audience (31%)
What Drives Content To Be Effective?
There are many factors behind content marketing that makes it stand out of the crowd. According to LinkedIn’s survey results, 71% of B2B leaders say their content needs to be appropriate for their audiences; in other words, the content must rightfully speak to their audiences’ questions and objectives, therefore engaging them.
Having a call-to-action and storytelling both tied in as effective elements among 56% of B2B leaders. A call-to-action is necessary to ensure that content is successful; a narrative is also imperative to relate to B2B leaders.
Coming in last is transparency and easiness. According to 40% of B2B leaders, keeping the content as clear as possible keeps their audiences focused. Below is the full infographic:
