B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS

B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS

Welcome to Spry s latest B2B Marketing Insights. Did you know that more than half of B2B marketers believe their organization is unsure about what content marketing success looks like? We d like to help clear things up by offering some insights into what constitutes a successful content marketing strategy. Find out what makes content engaging, as well as how often and where to publish. Discover which tactics are capturing audiences and what s new with social media. For additional tips to help you become even more effective, check out the tools at the end of this report. Here s to your success! B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 2

BRANDING Creating Personality Your brand identity in the B2B marketplace is dependent on the compelling content and personality that you share with your customers. In fact, companies that connect to their customers on an emotional level enjoy twice the impact as their competitors who sell mostly on the basis of product value alone, and the most connected brands saw 31% growth. 86% 60% 86% of B2B buyers admit to seeing no real difference between suppliers and their messages on product features and functions. 60% of customers who felt a high brand connection with a company were more likely to buy their product or service, even if the price was higher than the competitor s. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 3

CONTENT MARKETING Winning Relationships Craft strong customer relationships through your current website and social media. However, constantly striving to leave a lasting impression is important. Testimonials Are Great Tools They provide an example of strong existing relationships in your current business. Testimonials provide evidence from real customers who have experienced your product or services firsthand. Publish Content Regularly The more new content your team publishes, the more value you add to your brand. B2B customers will look to your team as a reliable source of information and will be more inclined to share your content with others. 88% 30% 76% 51% 86% of B2B marketers use content marketing...... but only 38% believe their efforts are effective. Still, 70% say they are creating more content than they were last year, Content Marketing Institute study B2B Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends North America and 55% plan to increase their content marketing spend in 2017. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 4

HOW OFTEN B2B MARKETERS MEET TO DISCUSS CONTENT STRATEGY 58% 8% 11% 36% 16% 8% Daily Bi-weekly Weekly Monthly Quarterly 32% 6% Other 14% Only when necessary Adapted from 2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs Of B2B marketers indicate they have a documented content strategy. Those who document their strategy are more effective in nearly all areas of content marketing. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 5

SOCIAL MEDIA A Social Media Evolution Nine out of ten U.S. companies are now active on social networks. Companies, even in B2B markets, cannot afford to be dormant or nonexistent on social media platforms. The emergence of social search, people using social media as a search engine, makes this even more necessary. Essentially, businesses social media pages must provide the same information and messaging as the company s website. There are now more than 2 billion active social media users worldwide, and that number is increasing at a pace of 25% each year. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 6

SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook Audience Expands Good news for many B2B companies, Facebook is no longer just a platform for young people. Facebook s fastest growing age demographic is people over the age of 55, with 80.4% growth in the last 3 years. This means that directors, CEOs, and presidents of companies are now likely to be on Facebook, making it an important platform to B2B companies. Smartphone Social In 2017, the number of smartphone users in the United States is predicted to reach 219.8 million, and 7 of the 15 most-used mobile apps are social media (the others being things such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google Maps, etc.). So as the number of mobile users goes up, so goes the number of social media users, creating more and more of an audience for you on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Source: Statista.com B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 7

SOCIAL MEDIA Video Growth Facebook now sees 100 million hours of daily video watch time. (Facebook Q4 2015 Earnings Report). That s more than YouTube! Snapchat reports 6 billion views daily, and Twitter has recently gotten into the game, offering video posting as well. Audience Engagement with Video In 2015, the average adult watched 66 minutes of online video a day (emarketer.com). In short, video is king and gets the highest engagement levels of any content. So whether it is short 30-second videos or a 3-minute tutorial (we recommend never exceeding the 3-minute mark for a video), videos will greatly improve your engagement. 0:21 0:36 0:50 1:03 1:16 4:35 4:38 4:31 4:22 4:15 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 TV Digital video devices Adapted from www.emarketer.com B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 8

CONTENT CREATION & DISTRIBUTION 94% B2B s Social Media Platform Usage 87% 84% 74% 62% Average Number Used 6 Which social media platforms does your organization use to distribute content? LinkedIn Twitter Facebook YouTube Google+ Note: Fewer than 30% of manufacturing marketers said they use the following social media platforms: Instagram (25%), Pinterest (17%), SlideShare (16%), Vimeo (14%), itunes (10%), Tumblr (4%), Vine (3%), Periscope (3%), Medium (2%), and Snapchat (2%). 29% Instagram 94% USE LinkedIn B2B marketers said they used an average of six social media platforms. LinkedIn is now the platform they use the most (94% this year vs. 86% last year). 2016 B2B Manufacturing Content Marketing Trends North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 9

MARKETING AUTOMATION 144 Personalized Email Let s face it, no one likes to receive email that seems impersonal or irrelevant to their needs. Using Marketing Automation expands the ability to know more about a person and really cater to their needs as a new prospective client. Data drives future marketing action and the result is a more personalized approach. Reporting Is Key to ROI Every company wants to make a return on their investment. Well, have no fear, because reporting is virtually unlimited utilizing Marketing Automation, creating a realistic pipeline for your company. The Marketing Automation software reporting allows you to obsess over statistics such as top pages, keywords, and the duration of a visit to your website. Productivity Keeps You on Track A great function of Marketing Automation is the ability to simplify marketing tasks. Many platforms eliminate the repetitive day-to-day processes by substituting automated solutions. This, in turn, increases productivity within the company and puts an increased focus on less-repetitive tasks. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 10

WEBSITE & SEO Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average, which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day. In addition to the standard ways to improve your website s SEO, such as regular content, keywords, outbound links, etc., here are the hottest new trends to keep your site on page one of searches. Local Search With more and more companies rushing to compete in SEO with their competitors and driving Adword bid prices up, local search will gain in importance for companies with smaller SEO budgets. 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in the hope of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase. Local searches lead 50% of mobile visitors to visit stores within a day. (Searchengineland.com) More than 60% of consumers have used local information in ads. (Business2community.com) 50% of mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results. (Business2community.com) B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 11

WEBSITE & SEO Long-Tail Searches The Google SEO algorithm now focuses less on singular keywords and more on the best answer for long-tail searches, which now contribute to 70% of search traffic. Figure out which of these long-tail relevant keyword searches best fits your site and put money behind them in Adwords. Example: Instead of laptop, now Where can I buy a laptop? To rank higher organically in long-tail search terms, develop and post quality content to improve your ranking. The more relevant content you produce and distribute, the more you will build your brand visibility and reach potential customers you weren t targeting directly before. Video A recent report found that videos now make up 62% of all Google searches (marketingland.com). Because of this, Google has started giving attention to blended results/searches, and videos now get 50 times better organic page ranks in Google than text results (Forrester.com Nate Elliot). Video searches also garner 41% higher click-through rates (realseo.com). B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 12

WEBSITE & SEO Mobile Friendly This year, with more people searching on mobile devices, Google s algorithm update is prioritizing mobile-friendly websites on searches. 70% of mobile searches lead to online action within an hour. (Socialmediatoday.com) The total number of searches on mobile devices has increased by 43% year-over-year. (Yahoo! Hong Kong) Over 1.2 billion people access the web from their mobile devices. (Mobify.com) Global mobile traffic now accounts for 15% of all Internet traffic. (Newtarget.com) 95% of smartphone users have searched for local info. (Adwords.blogspot.com) U.S. Local Search Market: Mobile vs. Desktop Mobile local search volume now surpasses desktop local search for the first time. In 2016, mobile is expected to exceed desktop by 27.8 billion queries. (BIA/Kelsey) Desktop Mobile 120.0 100.0 80.0 Billions 60.0 40.0 20.0 0.0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 13

VIDEO MARKETING Branded Video Content Traffic is starting to shift from traditional blog posts to dedicated video blogs or YouTube channels. This form of content is nothing more than videos published under a brand s name for the sole purpose of engaging users. Good news many brands will be able to repurpose their existing content by converting it to video. Email Marketing In 2016, marketers relied less on heavy text content and more on videos that encourage prospects to interact with their brands. The key to using video content in your email messaging is to have high-quality video with a length of no more than 3 minutes. Live Streaming By capturing and sharing casual video or storytelling, companies are allowing users to live-stream video clips to their followers through social media. Periscope, an entirely new social media platform, is expected to explode this year. It offers both social media and video and may well hit a sweet spot for digital marketers. Mobile video budgets have increased by 18% since 2014, indicating higher engagement & more direct interaction. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 14

MARKETING AGENCIES Time Is an Issue Still Agencies can generally execute marketing activities quicker and with greater efficiency than businesses can complete them in-house. The reason is simple: these tasks are at the core of what agencies do all day, every day, while they tend to be at the peripheral of focus for most businesses. Hire a Team of Experts The expertise offered by a team of marketing professionals at an agency can be exponentially greater than that of a small in-house marketing staff. Agencies provide cross-functional marketing skills and industry-leading creative and strategic perspectives something most in-house marketing teams cannot deliver, especially true for small- to midsize departments. You get more specialists for less cost! New Year, New Perspective The phrase you can t see the forest for the trees is really true when it comes to marketing. Your emotional connection to your company and your brand can distort the lens through which you see your marketing efforts. Bringing in a third-party opinion one that is also invested in helping you succeed can help shine a light on issues and uncover opportunities for improvement. Strategy, Strategy, Strategy Of course, if you don t already have a strategy in place, hiring an agency is a perfect place to start putting one in place! B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 15

BONUS B2B MARKETING TRENDS Resurgence of Email More email is read on mobile devices than on desktop. Statistics show that 55% of email is now opened on a mobile device. (Litmus Email Analytics 2016) Content Content marketing budgets are projected to grow 59% (Pulsepoint & Digiday) by 2017, far outpacing search and social budgets. Search algorithms are rewarding websites that produce high-quality and relevant content over companies who purely employ technical SEO. Episodic content is also particularly important. A study discovered the average page views of articles in a series was 124.3% (Skyword Content Marketing Agency) higher than those not included in a series. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 16

ADVOCACY MARKETING According to a customer advocacy report, word-of-mouth is the primary influence on purchasing decisions for 84% of B2B buyers. Referring customers seldom do it just once. On average they refer 3.5 LEADS EACH B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 17

ABOUT SPRY IDEAS At Spry Ideas, we love helping people impact their customers with content. We ve been told we re not an average agency, and we tend to wear that like a badge of honor. We work hard to nurture what makes us different and to develop those differences into meaningful value for our clients. As our business has evolved over the years, from our earliest roots in printing and publishing into today s marketing services agency, one common thread has been woven throughout virtually everything we do We create and deliver valuable content that educates, influences, and improves lives. Our manufacturing clients utilize a wide range of content solutions to inform their audiences about highly complex products and processes. Through marketing automation, we help businesses build and execute campaigns that influence their customers buying journeys. Our ongoing partnerships with top healthcare organizations have served to improve outcomes for millions of patients worldwide. And in all of those arenas, we utilize award-winning content with cutting-edge delivery vehicles to help our clients build profitable relationships with their customers. We hope to have the opportunity to hear what makes your business unique, to explore ideas with you, and to become pivotal to your greater success. Be sure to check out the Resources section on our website for other downloadable B2B marketing tools. B2B MARKETING INSIGHTS 18