Ocean Spray is crafting cross-channel campaigns this holiday season on TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube using social content creators and promotions tailored to each platform. And then there are the shoppable recipe videos it’s producing to run on various publisher sites. The result? A whole lot of fragmentation. Read how Ocean Spray views this complexity as both a challenge and an opportunity, according to a piece in AdExchanger.

The post Inside Ocean Spray’s Cross-Channel Holiday Marketing Campaigns appeared first on Chief Marketer.

It never hurts to brush up on your SEO practices. Check out these 13 steps to a content refresh of your website, according to a piece in Multichannel Merchant, that can help drive SEO, improve engagement and increase the relevancy of your brand.

The post A Content Marketing Refresh in 13 Steps appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Content consumption in the B2B space has accelerated rapidly over the past two years. Consider this statistic: According to NetLine Corporation’s 2022 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report published this week, consumption increased more than nine percent from 2020 to 2021, with total demand for B2B content rising 33 percent since 2019.

But whether marketers are successful at reaching B2B decision-makers through content marketing tactics depends on a multitude of factors, including the specific format preferred by buyers, the level of purchasing intent, the buyer’s specific job function, and much more. Following are highlights from the report, which analyzed data from approximately 13,000 pieces of content from 300 industries, processed by its syndication lead generation network.

Job Function

As expected, information technology professionals were the most active job function when it came to consuming B2B content, representing 28 percent of the total audience. Breaking it down further, 12.6 percent worked in IT systems management, 6.6 percent were network/server administrators and 6.4 percent were involved in software/system architecture.

The “executive” job function experienced a lift in 2021, increasing by nearly 20 percent to represent 13 percent of the total audience consuming content. Additionally, CEOs represented 10.7 percent of the total audience, and the consumption of B2B content by C-level executives overall rose 15.8 percent year-over-year. The industry categories that recurred the most after IT and executives were education, engineering, human resources and finance.

Interestingly, though it wasn’t ranked as a top-10 job function, biotech industry professionals—presumably in light of COVID-19 vaccines becoming available in 2021—requested about 26 percent more content than they did in 2020, according to the report.

Job Level

Drilling down further into target audience statistics, 40 percent of all content consumption came from C-level users (14.8 percent), managers (13.3 percent) and directors (12.5 percent). In terms of year-over-year increases, directors consumed 27.8 percent more content and C-level users consumed an additional 15 percent. The most active job level—for the sixth consecutive year—was “individual contributor,” representing 25.5 percent of the audience.

Format

When examining format, the most popular content type was eBooks, accounting for more than 43 percent of all buyer registrations, followed by guides (8 percent), cheat sheets (8 percent), tips and tricks guides (7 percent) and white papers (7 percent). Interestingly, the consumption of cheat sheets grew by 56 percent year-over-year. When looking at the webinar format, total buyer registrations increased 63 percent year-over-year, while virtual event registrations increased by 139 percent.

Buyer Intent

The amount of time it takes for buyers to invest in services is another data point warranting consideration by B2B content marketers. The report notes that approximately 31 percent of respondents expect to make purchases in the next 12 months. Within that subset, 55 percent will take 6-12 months, 26 percent will take 3-6 months and 19 percent will take less than three months.

Additional highlights from the report:

*Though the volume of B2B content is increasing, the time spent consuming those assets of content is expanding as well. In 2021, it took users 12 percent more time to open a piece of content they’d requested than the year prior—on average, 33.3 hours versus 29.7 hours in 2020.

*Looking at when content is most frequently reviewed throughout the week, the report notes that Wednesdays are the most popular day, followed closely by Mondays and Tuesdays. Approximately 90 percent of consumption happens during the work week.

*Keyword trends for 2021, ranked in order of interest, included pandemic, virtual, next generation sequencing (NGS), artificial intelligence (AI) and construction financial.

*Content is being consumed overwhelmingly via desktop, the report revealed, representing nearly 93 percent of engagements. That’s up from 74 percent in 2020.

Editor’s Note: Chief Marketer’s parent company Access Intelligence uses NetLine Corporation’s lead generation services.

The post Key Takeaways From NetLine’s 2022 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report appeared first on Chief Marketer.

The technological tools marketers can employ to disseminate a company’s vision and increase brand equity are evolving. Following are several insights and technology trends marketers can incorporate into their communication strategies as they plan for 2022, according to a piece in AdExchanger.

The post Technology Tools Content Marketers Can Leverage in 2022 appeared first on Chief Marketer.

One way marketers are adjusting to recent and forthcoming demands to protect consumer data privacy, whether due to regulation, restrictions imposed by online browsers or Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework, is through leaning into first-party data collection. But for companies such as cancer resource SurvivorNet, which provides critical information for people with cancer diagnoses and their families, there is a need to do so with the utmost sensitivity. To meet this challenge, the brand has created custom content journeys for consumers using first-party data while at the same time remaining sensitive to readers’ health circumstances, according to a piece in AdExchanger.

The post How SurvivorNet Leveraged First-Party Data to Create Multiple Content Journeys appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Your online presence has never been more critical to your business success. Because it’s not flashy ads or trendy products winning customers today—it’s the customer experience itself.

Salesforce’s “State of the Connected Customer” research report tell us that customers are 140 percent more likely to spend after having a good experience. That certainly makes sense, but when you consider that 73 percent of B2C customers say their standards for good experiences are higher than ever—and that 53 percent of customers believe most companies are falling short—alarm bells should be ringing.

Personalized content delivered at the right time and to the right person is key to meeting and exceeding these high expectations. This should be the goal of any ambitious company, but it’s not easy to achieve.

Your CMS, the very platform you depend on to manage and publish the content you work so tirelessly to produce, might be the thing holding you back. When content is fragmented across multiple platforms, technologies and teams, it becomes difficult for marketers and content authors to optimize their time and efforts.

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 Content Management and Strategy Survey, only 5 percent of marketers have developed a systematic approach to producing, managing, and distributing content, while 69 percent say there are “some systems in place, but there is still a lot of manual work” to be done.

With this fragmented approach very common across a variety of businesses, it’s not terribly surprising that many of us are unable to produce the sheer volume of content needed for effective personalization.

We call this the “content crisis.”

But the content crisis can be overcome. It begins with understanding the end-to-end content lifecycle and taking a more holistic approach to content management.

Simply creating engaging content won’t be enough, nor will owning a license to a CMS (no matter how advanced it is).

Sitecore’s new guide, straight from our Virtual Marketer Day global digital conference, will take you through this journey and provide your business tools and tactics for overcoming the content crisis.

It’s time to go beyond siloes and consider the end-to-end content lifecycle.

The post Understanding the End-to-End Content Lifecycle appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Your online presence has never been more critical to your business success. Because it’s not flashy ads or trendy products winning customers today—it’s the customer experience itself.

Salesforce’s “State of the Connected Customer” research report tell us that customers are 140 percent more likely to spend after having a good experience. That certainly makes sense, but when you consider that 73 percent of B2C customers say their standards for good experiences are higher than ever—and that 53 percent of customers believe most companies are falling short—alarm bells should be ringing.

Personalized content delivered at the right time and to the right person is key to meeting and exceeding these high expectations. This should be the goal of any ambitious company, but it’s not easy to achieve.

Your CMS, the very platform you depend on to manage and publish the content you work so tirelessly to produce, might be the thing holding you back. When content is fragmented across multiple platforms, technologies and teams, it becomes difficult for marketers and content authors to optimize their time and efforts.

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 Content Management and Strategy Survey, only 5 percent of marketers have developed a systematic approach to producing, managing, and distributing content, while 69 percent say there are “some systems in place, but there is still a lot of manual work” to be done.

With this fragmented approach very common across a variety of businesses, it’s not terribly surprising that many of us are unable to produce the sheer volume of content needed for effective personalization.

We call this the “content crisis.”

But the content crisis can be overcome. It begins with understanding the end-to-end content lifecycle and taking a more holistic approach to content management.

Simply creating engaging content won’t be enough, nor will owning a license to a CMS (no matter how advanced it is).

Sitecore’s new guide, straight from our Virtual Marketer Day global digital conference, will take you through this journey and provide your business tools and tactics for overcoming the content crisis.

It’s time to go beyond siloes and consider the end-to-end content lifecycle.

The post Understanding the End-to-End Content Lifecycle appeared first on Chief Marketer.

But when it comes to the quality of that content, 43 percent of marketers surveyed said only some of it hits the mark and drives value. The percentage of marketers rating their organizations’ content as exceptional or good came in at 41 percent, and 16 percent said they struggle to create content that provides value for customers.

The report, called “Turning a Creative Eye on Content ROI,” surveyed 195 global marketing leaders in a variety of industries, including information technology, professional services, financial services, manufacturing and education. Respondents’ market focus was mostly B2B (56 percent) and both B2B and B2C (29 percent), with 16 percent of marketers contributing to the survey focused on B2C exclusively.

Content is an integral part of the marketing mix. The majority of respondents, 61 percent, said that content communicates brand promise and value for their organizations. Marketing content is also used for delivering thought leadership (51 percent), is the cornerstone of how their businesses communicate with customers, prospects and partners (45 percent) and powers demand generation or lead acquisition strategies (42 percent).

It also differentiates businesses’ products and services, according to 40 percent. The marketing strategies that rely on effective brand content the most are demand generation (77 percent), sales and sales enablement (53 percent), customer loyalty programs (40 percent) and customer service and support (40 percent), according to the survey.

But challenges to creating content that drives value for brands remain—and many marketers are finding it difficult to determine whether or not the content resonates. Having the budget to develop high-quality, robust content at scale was the top challenge (47 percent), followed by knowing whether the content created is influencing and engaging their target audience (43 percent) and the ability to translate thoughts and concepts into reality (38 percent).

Being able to measure true content ROI against business goals was another top challenge, according to 36 percent of marketers surveyed. In fact, if respondents had to choose only one challenge to be resolved, it would be knowing what content resonates (21 percent), followed by budget (20 percent) and measuring true ROI (16 percent).

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Content Consumption and Production Trends for B2B Marketers
• How Interactive Content for B2B Marketing Will Leap Forward with 5G
• Data on Digital Creative, Media Consumption and Consumer Confidence During Covid-19 Crisis

The post Report: Marketers Face Challenges With Measuring Engagement and ROI of Content appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Let’s start with our own data. According to Chief Marketer’s 2020 B2B Marketing Outlook, the content that’s most effective for moving prospects through the sales funnel is articles and blog posts (55 percent), reviews and customer testimonials (43 percent) and whitepapers (38 percent).

But a new report from Centerline Digital looks at how managers and VPs consume marketing content in comparison to c-level executives. For instance, c-level execs take 21 percent more time to read content than managers do, and VPs consume content the fastest—usually within 24 hours. The implication: targeting managers and VPs could result in faster results. The report also noted that the early-funnel content type that’s the highest-rated is infographics and 59 percent of senior executives prefer to watch video over text.

An infographic from Grazitti Interactive highlights additional consumption and production trends, from technologies used to aid content marketing, outsourcing strategies and the stages of the funnel for which B2B marketers tend to create the most content. Here are the highlights:

*The top three technologies used to assist content marketing are analytic tools, email marketing software and social media publishing.

*The least important technologies used were content performance and recommendation analytics, digital asset management systems and integrated content marketing platforms.

*Half of B2B marketers surveyed outsource at least one content marketing activity, with content creation being the category at the very top of the list.

*While 92 percent of B2B marketers fast check their content to ensure accuracy, 48 percent craft content based on the stages of the customer journey.

*Half the content produced by B2B marketers is created for early stages of the customer journey. Just 14 percent is produced as late-stage content and 11 percent for post-sale.

*80 percent of B2B marketers use metrics to measure content performance, with 65 percent establishing KPIs. The top metrics used are email engagements, website traffic, website engagement, social media analytics and conversions.

*The top three goals achieved by B2B marketers through content marketing are creating brand awareness, educating audiences and building credibility and trust.

The post Content Consumption and Production Trends for B2B Marketers appeared first on Chief Marketer.

1. INFOGRAPHIC: Five Insights from the 2020 Chief Marketer B2B Marketing Outlook

Our annual B2B Marketing Outlook survey results—including a handy infographic—is one of our most read B2B marketing stories this year. It looks at insights on topics that are important to B2B marketing success, including the channels most used by marketers to generate ROI, the greatest challenges to social media marketing and the types of content most effective for moving prospects through the sales funnel.

2. CMO Roundtable: Visa, Personal Capital, AKT and Zoom Talk 2020 Marketing Trends

To shed light on how modern marketing chiefs prioritize the range of tasks they’re charged with today, and how marketing trends in 2020 are influencing their roles, we spoke with CMOs, from Visa, Personal Capital, Zoom and boutique fitness brand AKT.

3. Oracle CX CMO Talks Customer Experience Trends for Marketers in 2020

Each interaction a consumer has with your brand has the ability to influence—and perhaps determine—customer acquisition. We spoke with Des Cahill, CMO of Oracle’s global customer experience business, about how CX is evolving, trends to look out for in 2020 and how AI and data management will influence the customer journey this year and beyond.

4. How to Effectively Use Marketing Content in the Mid-Funnel

Reliance on the start of the customer journey and the all-important end without considering the mid-funnel may decrease conversions. Indeed, what goes on between the intrigue and conversion stages can make or break a company. We look at how to use content more effectively in the mid-funnel.

5. Five Ways to Make Email Marketing More Effective

If you depend on email to generate leads and drive revenue, it’s critical to understand how the email marketing environment has evolved and how to maximize email engagement. Consider these five tips going forward.

The post Our Top Five B2B Marketing Stories of 2020 appeared first on Chief Marketer.