It's All About the Leads for Technology Content Marketers

CLEVELAND, March 25, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Of all the segments of content marketers the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has studied over the last year, technology marketers are the most focused on lead generation as a goal for content marketing. That's just one of the findings in new research released today by CMI. The B2B Technology Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, sponsored by International Data Group (IDG) shows how B2B technology  marketers have changed their content marketing practices over the last year.

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While tech marketers were the group most focused on lead generation last year as well, the percentage has increased from 86% in 2014 to 91% this year. It's also notable that they are shifting away a bit from brand awareness (which does not generate leads) as a primary goal, and more toward getting measurable results (using leads as one measure). Other  B2B marketers have traditionally cited brand awareness as the top goal.  

"It appears that tech marketers are making more efforts to set goals they can measure, such as lead generation," explains Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute, and author of Epic Content Marketing and the upcoming book for entrepreneurs,Content Inc. "It's encouraging to see that their metrics are moving toward alignment with their goals."

The research also shows that like their B2B peers overall, technology marketers continue to cite website traffic as their top metric. However, technology marketers are much more focused than their B2B peers are on sales and lead-related metrics: sales lead quality (62% vs. 49%), higher conversion rates (61% vs. 48%), and sales lead quantity (54% vs. 40%).

There are many more eye-opening findings in the full report.  
Our SlideShare presentation is available for download. 
Graphics, charts, pictures, quotes and more, are available in Dropbox. 

About Content Marketing Institute (CMI) 
Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization. CMI teaches enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multi-channel storytelling. CMI's Content Marketing World event, the largest content marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. CMI also produces Intelligent Content Conference, Content Marketing Sydney and Content Marketing Singapore. CMI also publishes the bi-monthly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. CMI is a 2012, 2013 and 2014 Inc. 500 company. Watch this video to learn more about what we do.

SOURCE Content Marketing Institute