2018 B2B Content Marketing Distribution: What The Data Doesn’t Tell You [Research]

B2B Content Marketing Distribution -Research

Not all B2B content marketing distribution is created equal.

But you knew that!

Maximize your B2B content marketing distribution by integrating it into your content marketing strategy. This will help yield an expected outcome.

To improve your B2B content marketing distribution, let’s examine 2018 B2B Content Marketing Research conducted by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs. It will help expose opportunities to improve your distribution reach and results. (Welcome CMI Market Research Director Lisa Murton Beets!)

Overall 2018 B2B Content Marketing Distribution Research Results

Two B2B content marketing distribution trends stand out:

1. 58% of B2B marketers deliver content on a consistent basis.

Missed B2B opportunity: 2 out 5 marketers don’t deliver content on consistent basis.Click To Tweet

Deliver your content weekly or bi-weekly. Beyond developing reader relationships, content distribution consistency builds reader expectations. As a result, readers make it part of their regular content consumption diet.

2. 23% of B2B marketers outsource content distribution.

BUT do your own personal outreach to influencers, journalists and prospects across platforms. These communications must come from your company email address.

Maximize B2B content distribution with personal outreach to influencers & prospects.Click To Tweet

2018 B2B Content Marketing Distribution Trends

B2B Content Marketing Distribution Research Results

Here’s how B2B marketers distribute their content marketing in 2018:

93% of B2B marketers use email.
92% of B2B marketers use social media.
79% of B2B marketers use blogs.
56% of B2B marketers use live events.
55% of B2B marketers use webinars.
27% of B2B marketers use content hubs and microsites.
24% of B2B marketers use print magazines.
23% of B2B marketers use non-magazine forms of print.
21% of B2B marketers use digital magazines.
21% of B2B marketers use online presentations.
4% of B2B marketers use other options.

2018 B2B Content Distribution Chart

B2B Content Marketing Distribution Research Analysis

Most B2B content marketers use email and social media to distribute content.

1/5 of B2B content marketers still use print to distribute content!

More than 20% of B2B content marketers use print to distribute content.Click To Tweet

Over half of B2B content marketers use real time live and/or online events to distribute content.

50+% of B2B content marketers use real time events to distribute content.Click To Tweet

Actionable B2B Content Marketing Distribution Tactics

Create conference and event related content. Lee Odden and his Top Rank team write blog posts before, during and after major conferences.
Redistribute conference content. Tap into other people’s content or extend your sponsorship investment. Curata reuses conference sessions they sponsor as webinars. Respect conference rules regarding content reuse, fees and publication!
Publish your live webinar presentations. Extend your live content reach. But check conference contracts before publishing since there’s often an exclusionary period. Ann Handley enhanced a keynote she gave by adding notes.
How to share your presentation slides to add value for non-attendees
Be a guest on other people’s webinars and podcasts. Many shows need guests. Time your appearances to coincide with major content efforts.
Place articles in print publications where you advertise. One of my students did this successfully.
Tap into executive presentations. Since your firm is already creating this content, extend it to other audiences. Michael Brenner did at SAP and the team continues to update the information.
SAP continues to update 99 Facts content annually (Note: Change in hashtag.)

2018 B2B Email Content Marketing Distribution

B2B Email Content Marketing Distribution Research

In 2018 B2B marketers use an average of 5 email options to distribute content.

63% of B2B marketers send event-based emails.
51% of B2B marketers send lead nurture emails.
48% of B2B marketers send monthly emails.
45% of B2B marketers send automated confirmation emails (i.e.: welcome emails).
45% of B2B marketers send drip campaign emails.
40% of B2B marketers send promotional emails.
31% of B2B marketers send ad hoc emails.
16% of B2B marketers send partnership emails.
13% of B2B marketers send bi-weekly newsletter emails.
11% of B2B marketers send weekly newsletter emails.
3% of B2B marketers send daily emails.
8% of B2B marketers send another type of emails.

Email B2B Content Marketing Distribution – Research Chart

B2B Email Content Marketing Distribution Research Analysis

72% of B2B marketers send a non-promotional email newsletter regularly.

72% of B2B marketers send non-promotional email newsletters regularly.Click To Tweet

Spin Sucks’s Gini Dietrich introduced a monthly email newsletter earlier this year.

Use your email newsletter to build audience relations. Spotlight recent content and activities. For example, my weekly newsletter has a personal tone and content. My readers respond to it with personal notes.

BTW, I’d be thrilled if you’d sign up for my weekly newsletter.

To maximize B2B email results, ask for minimum information (i.e.: name and email address). Qualify respondents later in your process to capture more email addresses.

Use your welcome email to ask respondents about their biggest challenges. Their pain points help you create new content.

Example of how to gather information from new email subscribers via Actionable Marketing Guide

Not every website visitor or email subscriber wants to receive your marketing drip campaign! They may just want your gated content.

Not every website visitor or email subscriber wants to receive your marketing drip campaign! Click To Tweet

Qualify conference and event prospects before placing them in your marketing automation. Don’t waste your sales team’s time with people who only wanted your give-away.

Actionable B2B Content Marketing Distribution Tactics

Segment your email housefile. Not everyone wants every piece of content you send or to be in your marketing drip campaign. Give them options in your welcome email.
Reach out to influencers and journalists where appropriate. Train employees to build relationships with influencers and journalists. This approach yielded additional articles for BuzzSumo.
Use personal email outreach. Everyone loves personal correspondence. Personal emails have a 6.2% higher open rate!
Send employees new content emailings. Don’t assume your personnel read your content marketing. Send your content emails to your agency, freelancer, supplier and distributor contacts.
Get customer service, sales and product employees involved in content distribution where appropriate. Work with customer-facing employees to gather questions they regularly get asked. Transform this information into quality content they can reuse.
Leverage business email signature files to distribute content. Require employees to use a set email signature format that links to your latest content.
Re-email addresses haven’t opened your emailings after 3 days. I learned this tip from Noah Kagan of Sumo.
Run an email win-back campaign before dropping people from your list. Send an email or two to try to encourage inactive email addresses to be responsive since acquisition is difficult.
Cross-promote your content. Partner with a non-competitive business in a related niche. Only 1 out of 6 B2B marketers do this!
Create an email welcome series. Warm recipients to getting your content. Check Henneke’s welcome email tips.

2018 B2B Social Media Content Marketing Distribution

B2B Social Media Content Marketing Distribution Research Results

In 2018 B2B marketers use an average of 5 forms of social media to distribute their content.

97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn.
87% of B2B marketers use Twitter.
86% of B2B marketers use Facebook.
60% of B2B marketers use YouTube.
30% of B2B marketers use Instagram.
28% of B2B marketers use Google+.
19% of B2B marketers use Slideshare.
12% of B2B marketers use Pinterest.
6% of B2B marketers use Medium.
3% of B2B marketers use Snapchat.
4% of B2B marketers use other social media platforms.

How marketers use social media for B2B content marketing distribution in 2018 [Chart]

B2B Social Media Content Marketing Distribution Research Analysis

B2B marketers underestimate Facebook’s ability to deliver content to targeted audiences. BuzzSumo’s content distribution case study underlined this B2B content distribution gap. Maximize Facebook results by using organic postings and targeted Facebook advertising.
Given the video content focus, use YouTube for B2B marketing since it’s the second largest search engine after Google.

Actionable B2B Content Marketing Distribution Tactics

Participate in relevant amplification sites. Try Inbound.org, Growth Hacker, Slack and/or Reddit. Be an active member and pay-it-forward before promoting your own content. Aaron Orendorff and Nayda Khoja are masters of this technique.
How Aaron Orendorff and Nayda Khoja leveraged content amplification
Get active in LinkedIn and Facebook Groups. Participate in targeted LinkedIn and Facebook Groups to build your squad. BuzzSumo’s Susan Moeller started Women In Content Marketing Facebook Group that’s grown to 200 people.
Add LinkedIn Publishing and/or Medium to your content transformation list. These platforms are under-utilized. Create similar but not the same content for these platforms. Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina calls this “Evil Twin Content.” Ion Interactive publishes consistently on Medium.
Build relationships with peers on TwitterChats. My faves are Content Marketing Institute’s #CMWorld chat (Tuesdays at noon) and Spin Sucks’s #ContentChat (Mondays at 3:00 pm). Join Madalyn Sklar’s #TwitterSmarter (Thursdays at 1:00pm) to learn more about Twitter.
Test Pinterest’s B2B content marketing distribution opportunity. While predominantly a female-oriented platform, Pinterest supports visual sharing. Take a page from Pinterest whiz Peg Fitzpatrick. Example of how to use Pinterest for B2B Content Distribution – Peg Fitzpatrick
Use Slideshare to republish presentations and/or webinar content. Get extra mileage for your live content. (BTW—Slideshare handles all content formats.)

2018 B2B Blog Content Marketing Distribution

B2B Blog Content Marketing Distribution Research Results

4 out of 5 B2B marketers use blogs to distribute their content marketing. As owned media, this percentage should be close 100%. Here are 10 B2B blogging tactics you can use.

B2B Blog Content Distribution Research Analysis

Blogs straddle content marketing and social media. They’re owned content publishing platforms that provide easy distribution, support search optimization and allow discussion (via comments.)

Even better, blogs allow publication of text, visual, video and audio content. At a minimum, publish your multi-media content on your blog to expand your distribution and to build your email house file.

Actionable B2B Content Marketing Distribution Tactics

Optimize blog posts for social media sharing, search findability, and influencers.
Make each blog post an entryway to your content and product offering.
Use your blog to capture email addresses. One of your B2B blogging goals should be building your house file and community.
Curate related content in each post. Include existing content links within your content text, set recommended reading apart from the rest of your content, and place links at the end of your content. Where possible hired a dedicated curator like Content Marketing Institute’s Jodi Harris.
Create related articles for other distribution channels. Include guest posts, regular columns (Think: Inc, Entrepreneur and Forbes), and print magazines.
Mention blog posts on relevant interviews. Use blog posts to complement your commentary elsewhere.
Get permission to repost guest blog posts on your blog. Always ask first! This often requires an exclusion period.
Offer blog post republication rights to third party blogs. Business2Community is an example of such a blog.

The 2018 B2B Content Marketing Distribution Conclusion

To maximize your B2B content creation investment, spend time and resources to amplify and distribute your content.

Go beyond basic email and social media distribution to extend your content reach.

Segment your email house file to give readers content they really want with the appropriate message. Warm your new email subscribers using a welcome series.

Expand your B2B social media presence and distribution. At a minimum use Facebook both organic and paid. Also create videos for YouTube.

Take advantage of internal and third party print opportunities.

Integrate your B2B content efforts into your live content presentations and webinars.

Don’t assume employees pay attention to your marketing content. Distribute your content to them. Spotlight how sales and customer service can use your content. Encourage them to help with influencer and journalist outreach.

The B2B Content Distribution bottom line:

Use a variety of targeted B2B content distribution options across media to expand your reach.
Continue distributing your B2B content over time.

Remember B2B content distribution isn’t once and done!

Continue redistributing your best content again and again and again.

Happy Marketing,
Heidi Cohen

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/9Q7PqDxCZeQ CC zero

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