Which content marketing initiatives are you working on?
Have you thought about your challenges?
How are you at visual story telling about your product or service?
B2C requires you to think of all types of customers you want to target.
If you’re targeting a B2C market, emotions play a vital role in sales. Your entire content strategy needs to be designed with this in mind. This includes the copy on your website, the tweets you send out, blog posts and every other piece of content that you publish.
Think about Apple’s marketing copy for every new product they launch; it’s simple, and emotional.
To the B2C customer, whether you’re a large, recognizable brand or a boutique firm plays a small role.
- Can you solve my problem through your product/service?
This question is all that really matters to your B2C target market; bonus points if you’re an industry leader.
INITIATIVES
What are the top initiatives B2C marketers are working on? According to Content Marketing Institute 2015 study:
- “Better converting visitors on website” tops the list of 28 potential choices.
B2C marketers are working on an average of 13 initiatives, and plan to begin working on an average of 9 over the next 12 months.
The largest percentages of B2C marketers are working on:
- Better converting visitors on website: 65%
- Creating more engaging/higher-quality content: 62%
- Becoming better storytellers: 61%
- Optimizing content: 61%
- Organizing website content: 61%
As for which they are planning to begin working on within 12 months, the highest percentages selected:
- Better mobile strategy: 38%
- Marketing automation/lead nurturing: 38%
- Measuring content marketing ROI: 37%
- Better understanding of what content is effective—and what isn’t: 35%
- Leveraging user- or fan-generated content: 35%
- Understanding/using content marketing technology: 35%
BUDGET
Approximately what percentage of your organization’s total marketing budget (not including staff) is spent on content marketing?
- The average is 25%
Last year, B2C marketers said they allocated 24% of their budget to content marketing. There is a correlation between effectiveness and the amount of budget allocated to content marketing.
- The most effective B2C marketers allocate 29%, on average, whereas the least effective allocate 17%.
- B2C marketers who have a documented content marketing strategy allocate even more budget (32%).
Social Media Examiner Study
The overwhelming majority use:
- Facebook ads (84%)
- Google ads (41%)
- LinkedIn ads (18%)
Facebook ads dropped from 90% in 2014 and LinkedIn ads dropped from 20%.
B2C marketers are using Facebook ads more (89%) than B2B marketers (75%).
How will marketers change their paid social media activities in 2015?
Marketers plan on increasing their use of:
- Facebook ads (53%)
- Google ads (38%)
- Twitter ads (31%)
- LinkedIn ads (29%)
- YouTube ads (26%)
A significant 56% said they have no plans to utilize Twitter ads.
Content Marketing Institute
Which paid advertising methods do you use to promote/distribute content?
- 92% use at least one
- Average Number Used: 4
The most effective B2C marketers, as well as those who have a documented strategy, use all of these paid methods a bit more frequently than the overall sample.
In addition, B2C marketers use more paid methods than their B2B counterparts (who use an average of 3). In fact, more B2C than B2B marketers use each of the methods shown here.
The biggest difference is in the use of print or other offline promotion, which only 52% of B2B marketers use.
How effective are the paid advertising methods that you use to distribute content?
- B2C marketers have the most confidence in search engine marketing (SEM)
Even though 71% of B2C marketers use “print or other offline promotion,” only 46% of them say it is effective.
Although the percentage of B2C marketers who use “newer” paid methods such as native advertising and content discovery tools isn’t very high yet, 40% to 42% of those who use them say they are effective.
This is a higher confidence rating than B2C marketers give for the more established method of “traditional online banner ads.”
CHALLENGES
With regard to content marketing, how challenged are you with each of the following?
- 51% cite measuring content effectiveness
Last year, 36% of B2C marketers said measuring content effectiveness was a challenge, compared with 51% this year.
A big jump this year in finding trained content marketing professionals (from 10% to 32%).
There were big increases in both of these areas for B2B marketers this year as well.
- As it is for their B2B counterparts, producing engaging content is a perennial top challenge for B2C marketers.
STRATEGY
Strategy in Social Media and Content Marketing plays a key role in success. Most of the past conventional thinking has been it doesn’t apply to our company or corporate strategy. That unfortunately has been shown to be flawed.
Goals, Strategy and Tactics are playing a more critical role in the success of social media and content marketing. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
What is critical, committing it to paper, writing in down versus verbalizing it.
Sources: Content Marketing Institute | Social Media Examiner
CONCLUSION
The world and information move fast. We now consume more information in one year than our forefathers did in a lifetime. Guess what…it’s going to come at you even faster.
The skills needed to thrive above the competition will be speed, and effectiveness. The ability to set goals, yet be flexible to change on a dime depending on market conditions. Businesses will come and go at a faster pace. Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn will continue to change and evolve at the blink of an eye.
How will you prepare yourself and business?
Notice the differences between the Content Marketing Institute study for ads vs. Social Media Examiner. While some similarities in the platforms, Social Media Examiner doesn’t address those other avenues like SEM, Search Engine Marketing which is playing a significant role and tends to be much more effective.
Facebook continues to drop organic reach for brands. It’s now Pay to Play and their advertising revenue stream is growing. However, when I talk to small business one gets the sense that not many of them are advertising. I wish Facebook would break out their numbers for small versus large businesses. I suspect the large brands have shifted ad dollars to Facebook and account for the majority of ad revenue.
Strategize with your team about your goals, and objectives. Write down you strategy and tactics. Monitor how you are progressing, and change accordingly. Be consistent with your content, day in day out. This is where I find most businesses fail.
- Be engaging, solve problems, be visual.
Remember you are your own MEDIA COMPANY. You control the content, and strategy. A daunting thought, yet most businesses and individuals I know want control.
Be careful what you wish for.
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About Blair
Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1Billion+ in sales annually.
Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.
Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.
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