Content marketing is the art of attracting prospects and clients with your brilliance —without the hard sell. Here are a few reaons why it’s a marketing technique worth considering.

• 77% of firms surveyed generate at least some new business online and 15% generate 40% or more of new business leads online.

• The fastest growing firms are generating 40-59% of their leads online. The higher percentage of leads a firm generates online correlates to how profitable that firm is.

• The most used techniques included (listed from more heavily used to moderate use): LinkedIn, email marketing, white papers, eBooks, newsletters, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, webinars and video.

• The techniques described as most effective (from highest to moderately effective) are: white papers/eBooks, blogging, SEO, email marketing, newsletter, Linkedin, and webinars.

• High growth firms were significantly more likely to post new content to their website on a weekly basis and to have redesigned their website in the last 12 months.

[Source: The Online Marketing for Professional Services Firms study from the Hinge Research Institute.] 

 

Nine out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing to grow their businesses. On average, marketers use eight content marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals. The most popular tactics are:

• Article posting (79%)

• Social media (excluding blogs) (74%)

• Blogs (65%)

• eNewsletters (63%)

• Case studies (58%)

• In-person events (56%)

• Videos (52%)

• White papers (51%)

• Webinars (46%)

• Microsites (31%)

Marketers are using content marketing to support multiple business goals, led by brand awareness (69%), customer acquisition (68%), lead generation (67%), and customer retention/loyalty (62%).

How are firms measuring the success of their content marketing? top answers include: increased web traffic (58%), sales lead quality/sales accepted leads (49%), direct sales (41%), qualitative feedback from customers (40%), and SEO ranking (40%).

The majority of firms (58%) are using a mix of in-house and outsourced content marketing, up from 52% last year.

By far the biggest challenge was producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers, with 41% of respondents listing that as their top issue.

[Source: The B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends Report by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs]