Content Marketing Institute recently released its annual B2B Technology Content Marketing 2016: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. And there were a few surprises.
Sponsored by IDG, the survey reached 3,714 recipients; 392 of those were identified as B2B technology marketers in North America. To be expected, the challenges remain in measuring content effectiveness and ROI (60% and 54% of respondents respectively). Same goes for producing content consistently (55%).
But a whopping 62% reported one of their top challenges is producing engaging content. The survey also found that only 28% have a documented editorial mission statement and 32% have absolutely none. Seems like a pretty big correlation there between the lack of mission and engaging content.
I find it quite surprising that the backbone of any content marketing initiative is missing this crucial component of a concrete editorial plan. How can you build an effective editorial calendar and really know what you want to deliver to customers without a thorough editorial plan?
It's crucial for content marketing initiatives to put this at the forefront. If you don't have a documented editorial plan, then it's an unequivocal outcome of trouble producing engaging content. Content isn’t going to be "compelling" without the strength of editorial guidance and targets.
From distribution tactics to priorities in the coming year (one of which is, surprise, surprise, producing more engaging content), there are a ton of other interesting insights. You can download the whole report here.