Brody Dorland asked for a breakdown of how agencies and brands differ when it comes to outsourcing. To address this great question, we broke down the survey questions and compared the responses from agencies to those from brands. Here’s what we found.

Agencies are using a greater variety of tactics

Agencies have a higher rate of adoption for almost all content marketing tactics (except eNewsletters and press releases). Some notable differences:

• 97% of agencies use social content compared to 88% of brands.
• 87% of agencies use blogging compared to 69% of brands.
• 79% of agencies use video compared to 68% of brands.
• 58% of agencies use images/infographics compared to 48% of brands.
• 53% of agencies use digital white papers/eBooks compared to 42% of brands.

Both groups rate content marketing effectiveness similarly

For the most part, agencies and brands agree on how effective content marketing tactics are. Two differences:

• 62% of agencies see good results from blogging vs. 48% of brands.
• 41% of brands see good results from eNewsletters vs. 29% of agencies.

Agencies are planning to increase their rate of outsourcing

Currently, brands are more likely to outsource all content types except for mobile and advertorials.

However, the gap between the rate at which agencies and brands outsource is closing. Whereas 64% of agencies and 71% of brands are currently outsourcing at least one content type, 70% of agencies and 71% of brands are planning to outsource at least one content type in the next 12 months.

Agencies and brands value similar attributes of content providers

For the most part, brands and agencies favor the same attributes when evaluating the services of a content provider. Yet, brands consider professional-level writing to be a more important attribute than agencies do (52% vs 44%). Brands also place greater value on hiring someone whose personality fits within the organization’s culture (28% vs. 15%). 

Which of these results do you find most interesting?

Here are some of the key takeaways from the survey: 

Social content and blogging are popular and effective 

Similar to what we found in the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Report, the most common types of content marketers use are social content (90 percent) and blogging (75 percent). Marketers see the best results from social content, e-newsletters, and blogging.

Are you in the majority of content marketers using social content and blogging? Here are some ideas on how to effectively use these types of content: 

• The Ultimate Guide to Blogging
• 7 Social Media-Inspired Content Marketing Lessons

The rate of outsourcing is increasing

Seventy percent of marketers plan to outsource at least one form of content in the next 12 months. Video is the type of content marketers most often outsource, followed by images/infographics and online articles.

If you are outsourcing, check out these ideas from our contributors:

• 3 Things to Look for When Hiring a Journalist for Content Marketing
• Looking for Help with Content Marketing? Tips on What to Outsource 

Engaging content and storytelling are paramount

Marketers consider three attributes of written content to be of the greatest importance when they use an outsourced partner to create content: engaging and creative storytelling, custom content, and professional-level writing.

 If you are looking for some additional guidance on creating engaging stories, these CMI posts can help: 

• Your Kick-Start Guide to Engaging Content [Free eBook]
• Content Marketing Storytelling: Secrets from the Big Screen 

What are your favorite results from the survey, or what questions do you have? 

Here is B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Budgets, Benchmarks and Trends.

It was no surprise to us that content marketing remains a top priority for marketers in 2012. Many of the statistics and results are consistent with what we saw last year:

• 9 out of 10 organizations market with content marketing.
• On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their goals.
• Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing (see the full budget breakdowns in the report).

But, we’re seeing a lot of changes as well.

Increased adoption rate for some tactics

Just as we found in last year’s study, article posting and social media (excluding blogs) are the most popular tactics and are currently used by 79% and 74% of B2B marketers, respectively.

But, there are a number of tactics that are seeing an increased adoption rate:

• Blogs (27% increase)
• White papers (19% increase)
• Videos (27% increase)

Marketers are using social media more frequently

As we saw last year, Twitter is the most popular social media channel with content marketers. Every social media channel is seeing increased adoption, often by 15-20%:

• YouTube: 47% increase
• LinkedIn: 39% increase
• Twitter: 35% increase
• Facebook: 30% increase

Content marketers are becoming more effective

Last year, we asked marketers to assess how confident they consider their usage of each tactic to be.  This year it’s clear that marketers are more confident in how well they are using these tactics — around just about every tactic. While in-person events and webinars are still seen as the most effective tactics, on average, the following ranked notably higher in perceived effectiveness compared to our last report:

• Blogs: 45% increase
• Case studies: 32% increase
• Videos: 36% increase
• Webinars/webcasts: 25% increase

Content marketing spend is increasing

Rising confidence in the effectiveness of content marketing seems to be spurring marketers
 to dedicate more budget to this strategy. On average, 60% of respondents indicate that they plan to increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months. This compares to 51% of marketers who were planning to increase their budgets in the previous study.

More marketers are outsourcing 

As content marketing budgets increase, so too does the percentage of companies that outsource. Last year, only 55% of marketers used outsourcing in some capacity. This year, 62% of B2B marketers use a mix of insourced and outsourced content.

Download the full report: B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends.

What findings in the research are most interesting to you? Let us know in the comments!

What I loved most about the class was the importance the trainer placed on knowing your audience. We spent a whole session answering questions about the people who would potentially be sitting in our audience: Why are they there, what other activities might they be missing to hear me speak, what do they really want to hear from me, what will turn them off, what things do we have in common, and so on.

This was a pretty familiar concept for me because we did this all the time in our content strategy engagements with clients. The cool kids call it buyer profiling. Whatever you call it, it is an essential step to developing a content marketing program that will actually help you meet your goals. Cards on the table, buyer profiling isn’t easy. But to follow up on my last post about demystifying and simplifying the content marketing process, this post will show you an easy process for learning everything you need to know about your potential target market without spending a ton of time or money.

If you or your company/clients have been in business for a while, you probably already have everything you need to go through this process with ease. But even if you are new to the content marketing game, you shouldn’t have much trouble implementing the process.

Ladies and gentlemen, chuck your spreadsheets!

I’ve participated in my fair share of “market research” projects where clients would spend embarrassing amounts of money doing mass-scale surveys, hiring telemarketing companies to do phone surveys, and buying lists upon lists of data about potential targets. Here’s what I learned: Spreadsheets filled with data give me the hives.

Here’s the problem with spreadsheets full of data: When we execute a content marketing strategy correctly, we must genuinely care about, serve, or enlighten our audiences to build relationships. Then, it’s those relationships that will ultimately drive business. As human beings, we aren’t programmed to be able to care about or engage with a nameless, faceless “buyer #1″ or “Company X.”

The new media environment isn’t about blasting your marketing message to the masses and hoping your target audience is seeing it. It’s about connecting with your audience — in some cases on a one-on-one basis — matching their needs with your relevant solutions and multiplying it all by the massive reach of the Internet. That’s where the sweet spot is. So if content marketing is about making personal connections, why would we choose to do our customer research on a mass scale?

Buyer profiling for the rest of us

I bet you already have some sort of client or customer database or email/ mailing list. I’m going to show you a very simple way to develop your buyer personas with the data you already have. In fact, I helped a small marketing agency customer with this exercise so I could better explain the process. Here’s what we did.

*Disclaimer! Before you get your analytical pants in a twist, I know this process isn’t scientific. But neither is producing good content. That’s why it’s called an art.

Step 1: Find your “top 20 percent.” We started by running a few reports from their Quickbooks account (but any customer database should work) to take a look at which clients had hired them and what work they hired the agency to do, as well as the amount of revenue that each project generated. Then, to make the numbers manageable, we looked at the top 20 percent of clients that contributed the highest percentage of their business revenue. This agency tends to be picky about the client projects they take on, so they had a smaller number to start with. If you have a large number of customers to look at, I suggest starting with your top 20 percent of customers (in terms of revenue or another relevant qualifier), then narrow it down to a smaller percentage that gives you a manageable list size to analyze. Maybe this is your top 10 percent or maybe 2 percent, depending on the number of customers you have.

Step 2: List what information you know about your customers. After we looked at the top 20 percent of their customers, we wrote down specific characteristics about each. Some sample characteristics you could write down about your top 20 percent include:

For BtoB:

• Size of company
• Size of department
• Title
• Job duties
• Whether or not they are the main decision maker

For BtoC:

• Demographics
• Geographic area
• Income level
• Are they a decision maker? If so, what do they base buying decisions on (e.g., lifestyle — environmentalist, baby boomer, etc.)?

If you don’t have much information on your customers, just focus on the things you do know: Maybe you know where they live, whether they’re male of female, or whether they are cat or dog people. Use this information to determine your key characteristics list.

Step 3: Find the commonalities to find your different segments. Then I reviewed the information about each of the top 20 percent clients and looked for any details that jumped out. As I read through the data, I discovered that most of these clients were either business owners with no marketing staff or corporate marketing managers who either ran their departments alone or with the help of one other person. Interesting! I think we just found their customer segmentations. As you look through your data, take note of any patterns that begin to emerge. What customer characteristics keep showing up? Did some specific “types” of people emerge? Are your clients mostly engineers? Mostly women? Are there a lot of middle managers on your list? Write these distinctions down to use as your buyer categories.

Step 4: Get in their heads. Here’s where the exercise from my public speaking class became so valuable. We began to ask questions about these new buyer categories we’ve defined, looking at the working relationship from their perspective and dialing in on their needs/wants/pain points: Why did they really hire this agency? What is the one thing they want to hear when choosing an agency partner? What pressures do they face in their job? What could the agency do to alleviate that pressure? What things do the agency and the different buyer groups have in common? We wrote all these things down, and if they hadn’t met the clients or didn’t know them personally, we used common sense. (Hint: everything you write down in this step could be turned into a content idea that you can put directly into your editorial calendar.)

Step 5: Give them “life!” Find an image that can represent each one of your different buyer types and give each one of these types a name. Then, based on the questions you answered for them above, start to create their stories. For example,  build a career history for them, include relevant details of their personal lives that explain why they are so busy, how many activities they are juggling at home, or any other specific interests they are likely to have. You can even include the content delivery mechanisms that they might prefer and why. And voila! You have your profile!

Bonus Step: If you want to get more scientific or you have little personal experience with anyone on your user list, (for example, if you work for an Internet business or a gigantic corporation, you might not have direct exposure to your customers) here’s a ready-to-go customer survey template that you can use to gather information from your customer/client list.

The rest of the story

The last thing I took away from my public speaking class was to wrap it up.

Once the marketing agency had a clear (and literal) picture of who its target client was and what they wanted from their agency, we developed their content strategy. Since clearly identifying their ideal, target clients, and building their content strategy to serve them, this little agency has seen significant increases in quality website traffic and more inquiries than they can keep up with.

Put the personas you’ve created in a document, print them out, and hang them on your wall (see another great example here from Barbara Gago). Every time you sit down to craft a piece of content, look at them and remind yourself what you’re really trying to do with your content marketing programs — connect with these people in a valuable and meaningful way.

If you have any suggestions to add to my buyer profiling process, or information you’d like to share on how you try to stay connected to your audience, I’d love to read them in the comments section below.

But a major shift has happened, leaving many advertising and public relations firms in survival mode  clinging to existing clients while relying on unclear or unstructured business development programs to bring home the bacon. It’s a precarious position that is compounded by limited time and resources.

So what gives? Why are the former masters of creativity and spin locked in a business development death spiral?

To find out, lonelybrand studied over 300 advertising and public relations agencies around the United States. Our study set out to discover how the sharpest marketers in the world perceive digital communications and what they plan to do to take advantage of emerging trends in the space. We collected over 150 data points from each panelist on everything from analytics to content and mobile marketing.

Despite their legacy of tackling print-based content marketing, these top advertising and public relations firms are struggling to understand and execute sustainable initiatives in the digital age. Meanwhile, consulting firms, digital agencies, and new industries are moving in to grab mindshare, followers, and clients, and they are doing it with targeted digital content.

Time is a limiting factor. Regardless of industry, fewer workers and more work to do has led to long hours and (in some opinions) a dearth of creative energy. Our study revealed that agencies desperately want to implement more digital initiatives to build and support content marketing, but feel they are unable to given current staff workloads.

(Note: You can find additional data on this and 10 pages of plain-language analysis in our Agency Growth Blueprint 2012.)

In my next few posts — an exclusive series for Content Marketing Institute — I’ll explore our findings and address challenges to implementing effective content marketing programs for advertising and public relations agencies. Let’s start by taking a view of the landscape.

Creating a digital ecosystem

Great content marketing serves a purpose; in fact, it typically serves several purposes. But content marketing needs support to accomplish real business objectives. For agencies in the digital age, that means building a self-sustaining ecosystem of digital communications. Here are some brief highlights of six key components to great content marketing for advertising and public relations agencies, as well as some data on digital adoption. (Note: I ordered these components alphabetically.  The optimal share of time dedicated to each, and the order they should be attended to varies from agency to agency.)

Analytics
Are you devoting enough time to measurement? We believe the best content marketers combine web analytics with inputs from other digital platforms to improve their efforts with each iteration. This may mean you’ll need to be fluent in several analytics languages, including paid media metrics and the ability to make data-driven decisions to guide content marketing tweaks, builds, and teardowns.

Customer relationship management (CRM)
For any agency, content marketing should be all about lead nurturing and the soft sell. Collecting prospect data in the digital age has never been easier, but what an agency does with that data after it is collected matters. Research social networks for additional information, keep leads segmented based on the piece of content that drew them in, and then create a schedule of follow-up activities. Store this data in a system accessible to anyone who handles marketing or business development for your business. Smaller firms may prefer easy to deploy cloud-based products while larger firms may need enterprise-level support.

Digital content
Driving interest in an advertising or public relations agency is easier said than done. A portfolio, client list, and endorsements are only part of the equation hence the need for more robust digital content. Blog posts, webinars, white papers, research reports, eBooks, landing pages, microsites, and entire websites are all examples of digital content that — once properly targeted — have the potential to feed the greater digital ecosystem. In fact, our data shows that 72 percent of advertising and public relations agencies using digital content marketing report closing deals in three months or less from point of first contact versus 54 percent without digital content marketing. But remember: Building content that connects with the target means having the discipline to stick to a regular schedule and aligning the work of your team members to make it happen.

Mobile
Digital content must be formatted for smart phones, tablets, and various mobile-friendly browsers. While that task seems daunting, it may be as simple as eliminating visual extras and widgets from your content, as these might render differently (or not at all) when you are developing for multiple platforms and operating systems. By focusing on developing readable, concise content, you’ve already won half the mobile battle. But as more executives and decision makers are surfing on tablets these days, this oft-overlooked piece of the digital marketing ecosystem can no longer be ignored.

Search and paid media
It rarely makes sense for advertising and public relations agencies to buy clicks for complex and expensive services. After all, an ad can’t write the RFP for you. But supporting smaller downloadables like white papers, webinars, reports, or key blog articles with search engine marketing and paid media will funnel fresh contacts into the digital ecosystem and act as a feeder mechanism for your agency business development program. Our study reveals that 70 percent of agencies with a documented search strategy close new business in 3 months or less from point of first contact, versus 54 percent of companies without a documented search strategy. Here, it’s best to start with a small budget allocation for a key piece of content and optimize based on performance.

Social engagement
If agency content isn’t easily shareable and share-worthy, it won’t be shared, period. Unfortunately, the bar for shareable content is always being raised, and the rules change daily. That means keeping abreast of what’s happening in the social space from a B2B perspective in addition to a client-centric B2C focus. Websites like Mashable help keep digital marketers up to speed on the latest developments, as well as news and industry information sites, like Content Marketing Institute.

Results and insights

Before you get overwhelmed with all the details and the work involved, let’s look at the big picture: How do advertising and public relations agencies fare when they use a digital ecosystem approach to content marketing?

The results are clear: Implementing content marketing backed by these six key areas of digital means it will take less time to find and close new business.

Getting on board means aligning people and processes to create and populate the digital ecosystem. But it’s no longer a process that can be ignored if you want to stay competitive. Advertising and public relations agencies that fail to do so in 2012 may be miss out on big growth opportunities, or worse, lose clients to agencies that can offer these services.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Wrong.

In fact, a recent online survey found only 33 percent of companies now have a mobile marketing strategy. However, an additional 62 percent of businesses plan to launch a mobile marketing strategy over the next 12 months.

The “Mobile Marketing: Plans, Trends and Measurability” survey was conducted by King Fish Media in partnership with Junta42, Maxymiser and Hubspot (Note: Registration is required).  More than 560 marketers and corporate executives participated in the online survey conducted in April. The survey revealed several other interesting trends about mobile marketing that are happening now and over the next year.

Mobile marketing has potential to build relationships

Sixty-four percent of survey respondents say the biggest upside of mobile marketing is its use as a relationship-building tool. While the actual monetization of mobile marketing is taking off slowly, opportunities exist to leverage apps to deliver tools, content and brand messages that can lead to customer sales.   Getting customers to download an app and claiming a piece of real estate on their mobile phones is one-to-one marketing at its finest.

The focus on relationships may explain the prevalence of the most popular content types, both now and over the next 12 months: Social networking, branded content distribution, email capabilities, geo-location/maps and general reference.

Android and iPad apps are gaining traction

The iPhone is currently the dominant platform for mobile apps, and nearly 75 percent of companies are developing iPhone apps. However, the Android and iPad apps are expected to see the strongest growth over the next year. Apps for the iPhone and Blackberry are expected to be flat. Interestingly, 68% of companies have no plans to develop apps using the Windows operating system.

Mobile spending to increase

Currently, only 12% of a company’s marketing spend is on mobile, but the vast majority of survey respondents (82%) plan to increase their spending on mobile over the next year, with an average spend estimated to be 19% of the budget. While half of respondents indicated the budget for mobile would be tied to a specific project/custom media program, 30% are moving budget from mainstream marketing and advertising to fund mobile marketing projects.

Mobile ROI is slow to develop

The overall return on investment (ROI) for mobile is slow to develop:

• Only 24% of survey respondents report the ROI for mobile programs has exceeded or performed as expected and 34 percent have not measured it.
• Forty-one percent say future mobile marketing programs will need to show a positive return to continue them.
• Thirty-four percent say they will be tracking ROI, but a positive return will not be required at this time.

Takeaways for content marketers

What you need to do about your mobile strategy may depend on your type of business:

• For companies that conduct online commerce, it is critical to offer an app or mobile web site that gives customers an easy-to-use and intuitive buying process.
• For companies that do not sell online, the question will be what is the best way to engage customers and prospects online to foster and maintain relationships.
• Mobile commerce may not make sense for many companies, particularly B2B brands that require a long and complex buying process.

As with any content marketing initiative, it is critical to offer valuable content and utilities instead of a sales message.  Some possible applications to offer through mobile channels include:

• Feeds of searchable content, podcasts and blogs that are dynamically updated
• Product or store finders using the GPS feature of the phone
• Unique videos, landing pages or content that can be accessed with a QR code
• Ties into your customers’ accounts or loyalty programs from mobile platforms

In short, think about tactics that will help bind your company to your customer by offering value and convenience.  Mobile marketing gives you the opportunity to build and strengthen your customer relationships.

• It focuses on European markets, providing an intriguing counterpoint to the many U.S.-based surveys.
• It surveys the actual behavior (rather than just the opinions) of over 1,000 buyers involved in purchases of over £20,000 (approximately $32,500 USD). In this way, it paints a highly accurate and objective picture of the rise of B2B content marketing.

Here are some highlights that may help inform your own B2B marketing plans.

B2B buyers simply want more information

One of the broadest and most significant findings of the Buyersphere research is that B2B buyers’  hunger for information is higher than a year ago. For example, when asked which media channels B2B buyers used when gathering information to help them make a purchase, they reported increases in usage of almost all channels, compared to responses from the Buyersphere Report in 2010.

Specifically, 70% of respondents said they had referred to supplier websites as an information source at some point during the buying process, which is up from 55% last year. And while social media channels continue to experience significant growth, even the conventional channels  such as press advertising were being accessed more frequently. It should be noted, however, that these are still used by the minority. For example, only 16% of B2B buyers reported using Facebook, for example, but Facebook use still experienced one of the greatest increases in usage, when compared to 2010 results (9%).

This significant growth in pre-purchase research clearly demonstrates the value of content marketing strategy. It also signals an ongoing shift from outbound to inbound marketing efforts­­—ones where individual buyers have control over when, where, and how to source information that is relevant to them. The natural conclusion here is that the brands that succeed in engaging customers will be those that rise most effectively to the content challenge.

Issue-based vs. product-based content

The Buyersphere survey allowed results to be compared across different stages of the buying cycle. This provides insight into another key piece of the marketing puzzle such as when to deliver specific marketing messages through a given channel.  For example, buyers reported using supplier websites more often when they were at the “need identification” stage than when at the “supplier selection” stage. Essentially, this means that buyers are more likely to turn to supplier websites when looking for ideas on how to deal with general issues than they are when selecting which supplier to choose.

Though it may sound counter-intuitive, these results suggest that suppliers would benefit from investing in high-level strategic content on their websites rather than simply treating their sites as a shop window for their products. The website clearly has a crucial role as part of the overall product/service experience, but the survey results highlight the dangers of not catering to information-hungry buyers who are looking for issue-based content from your site.  If you don’t provide it, your competitors will.

European attitudes toward social media

For U.S.-based marketers, the European nature of the research may provide an interesting contrast to experiences of content usage in their domestic markets. But there are also significant differences among the European countries themselves, suggesting that different content strategies should be considered for different national markets.

Buyer behavior varies widely throughout Europe, and these linguistic differences and social nuances should be taken into account when planning any content marketing efforts. These differences emerged most strongly when the Buyersphere study examined usage of social media information sources. Here are a few examples:

• In Germany and the U.K., 48% and 46% of buyers, respectively, used social media tools during the buying process; this is compared to just 22%, 26% and 35% of French, Benelux, and Italian respondents, respectively.
• The use of traditional online channels, by contrast, was consistent across all five countries, varying only between 88% and 93%.
• When looking at Facebook use,  16% of U.K. buyers used this platform at some point in their research, compared with only 5% of Benelux buyers.

Why the differences? While it may be reductive to fall back on the lazy stereotype of the rational, calculating German compared with the intensely personal- and relationship-conscious Italian, but cultural issues are clearly at work here.

The Italians love to talk – but not in English

To get additional perspective on cultural influences, I asked Holger Ambroselli, Head of European Planning for Base One in Amsterdam, for his view on the findings. As a German with an Italian surname working in Amsterdam for a British company, I felt he was well positioned to share some insight here. Ambroselli was adamant:

“I really believe there is a two-tier Europe. Social media has taken off more readily in countries where English is accepted as a business language, so it is naturally more popular in Germany than in Italy. The use of LinkedIn, for example, can be daunting because Italians are less comfortable using English, which is understandably the de facto working language of U.S.-originated social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.”

Ambroselli thinks that the unusually high level of reported blog usage in Italy (16%) reinforces his theory:

“Blogging is an online tool, but it is more intimate than wider platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn, so it is not surprising to me that Italians use it well. And don’t forget that the Italians love to talk about their opinions…”

He also believes the value placed on relationships plays a key role here.

“Some countries place a greater emphasis on personal, physical relationships, while others have simply not yet reached the stage where these relationships can develop online as it has in the U.S.  In the short-term, social media provides access to information; the benefits of relationship-building take longer to achieve.”

Get the full story: download the full report

The full Buyersphere Report 2011 is highly detailed. I have only skimmed the surface of its value here. Download it now for more useful information that will help any content marketer wishing to convince clients or bosses of the growing need for a carefully-planned and well-executed content marketing strategy.

What is a branded content tool? Essentially it’s an electronically-enabled service that gathers information from prospects and customers then produces, in return, a customized analysis, assessment, report or plan.

Check out CMI’s new interactive B2B content marketing assessment from our friends at Alinean. We’re really excited about this because it gives B2B marketers an opportunity to assess how their content marketing efforts compare to their peers from their industry and company size. No other research or tool provides this type of personalized assessment.

The assessment is based on the B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report and takes about 8 – 10 minutes. You’ll receive a quick overview of your results, and you can also get a more detailed report emailed to you.

See big results

Not only do prospects and customers love branded tools because they can get personalized results, but marketers are having great success with them.  According to a study from IDC, the investment in branded content tools has proven to be one of the highest ROI investments an organization can make in sales / marketing operations. The survey revealed that the average Alinean Business Value Tools programs delivered:

• An ROI of 810%, meaning that each $1 invested in a branded content tools program generated $8.10 in incremental benefits.
• A payback of less than three months from content deployment / delivery.

Get started

Sound interesting? The more aligned the tool is to helping the buyer through the buying process, the better.

The beginning of the buyer’s journey (Discovery)
Interactive research and diagnostic tools help uncover, confirm and prioritize the buyer’s issues. The insight from these diagnostic tools can help the buyer realize that addressing a specific issue and changing the status quo is a priority and worthy of pursuit.

Later in the buyer’s journey (Consideration and Decision)
Economic-focused executives demand that every investment deliver a bottom-line impact, positive return on investment, and quick payback. Use iterative tools to quantify potential savings and incremental benefits that the selected solution represents. You want to prove the solution is the best value.

Across the buyer’s journey, the recommended branded content and tools include:

The B2B Content Marketing Assessment represents a good example of a provocative tool, helping you as a marketer understand your current content marketing investments, tactics and effectiveness. Equally as important, it compares you to your peers and best practice leaders. The tool helps highlight and prioritize issues, and provides recommended improvement plans, helping you loosen the status quo, and start the journey towards content marketing nirvana.

Check it out and let us know your thoughts.

First, let’s talk turkey: the composition of respondents. Of the 1,124 respondents, 112 self-identified as working for or owning a professional service firm. Respondents were very heavily weighted to smaller practices:

• 41% work for firms with fewer than 10 employees (we can assume some are sole practitioners)
• 39% work for firms with between 50 and 249 employees
• 9% work for firms with between 250 and 4,999 employees
• 8% work for firms with more than 5,000 employees.

Keep in mind, therefore, that this report reflects the experiences of small- to small/mid-size firms. Another way to consider this: 80% of PSF respondents hail from firms with fewer than 250 employees, versus 67% across all industries. For this reason, consider comparisons with great caution.

What do we know about PSF marketers?

Eight out of 10 professional service firms use content marketing as compared to nine out of 10 marketers across all industries. PSF marketers closely mirror the larger population in terms of adopting specific content marketing tactics. Their top five tactics are:

• Social media (80% of PSF marketers use social media versus 79% of cross-industry average)
• Articles (78% PSF adoption versus 78% cross-industry average)
• eNewsletters (65% PSF adoption versus 61% cross-industry average)
• In-person events (64% PSF adoption versus 62% cross-industry average)
• Blogs (63% PSF adoption versus 51% cross-industry average)—an interesting anomaly.

Professional service firms are most likely to use LinkedIn (62% use the platform versus 51% on average across industries) to distribute their content via social media channels.

The content marketing confidence gap

Perhaps the most interesting findings have to do with “content marketing effectiveness.” Marketers were asked not only whether they used certain tactics, but also whether they found those tactics to be effective. For PSF marketers (as well as all other marketers) we found what we called a “confidence gap.” That is, while marketers use particular tactics in large numbers, those tactics are not always considered effective. For example:

• 80% of professional service firms use social media but only 35% believe it to be effective (defined as a rating of “4” or “5” on a 5-point scale)
• 78% use articles but only 48% rate that tactic as effective.

We also found certain tactics enjoyed high effectiveness ratings even though fewer marketers use them. For example, 64% of professional service firms use in-person events as a tactic but 85% believe that tactic is effective. (You can find much more detail in the report itself.)

Overall, PSF marketers are much more optimistic about the effectiveness of their content tactics than the cross-industry average. Even so, marketers are not using many measurement criteria to support this belief. The top five measurements PSF marketers use to analyze the success of their content marketing program are:

• Qualitative feedback (53%)
• Web traffic (52%)
• Direct sales (52%)
• Sales lead quality (44%)
• Sales lead quantity (37%)

The use of measurement criteria among PSF marketers is modest at best.

Conclusions

Again, the report must be viewed carefully because the respondents represented smaller firms. Even so, it’s clear that content marketing as a discipline is still not yet well understood by most professional services marketers. The low effectiveness ratings for many content marketing tactics can be attributed to either a disenchantment with that tactic,   simple confusion about how best to use the tactic or even how best to determine its effectiveness (I would wager the latter).

Another important point is this: the report provides a snapshot in time, and I tend to think the most value will come from viewing the trend line. Are marketers moving to certain tactics over others—particularly those viewed as more effective? Are they becoming more astute about measurement? Goals?

Are you a PSF marketer? What tactics do you find most effective? Do you experience the same “confidence gap”—using specific content marketing tactics but feeling perhaps they are not meeting your needs?

Adoption rates

Spending

Blogging and social media

Outsourcing