North American Business-to-Business (B2B) Software Marketers Using More Content Marketing Tactics than their Peers

CLEVELAND, April 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Business-to-business (B2B) software marketers have fully embraced content marketing and are using more tactics than their B2B peers.

A new report from Content Marketing Institute (CMI), sponsored by International Data Group (IDG), looks at the habits of B2B software marketers in North America, and compares their practices to those of a larger group of B2B content marketers representing a full range of industries, job titles, and company sizes.

Ninety-nine percent of software marketers are using content marketing, compared with 91% of their B2B peers overall. They use an average of 14 tactics, compared with the 12 their peers use, and they use those tactics more frequently.

Software marketers allocate 29% of their total budget to content marketing. Their B2B peers allocate 33%. Fifty-three percent of software marketers (and 54% of their B2B peers) will increase this amount over the next 12 months.

Like their peers, software marketers use an average of five social media platforms to distribute content. They use Twitter (89% vs. 80%), LinkedIn (87% vs. 83%), Facebook (82% vs. 80%), YouTube (69% vs. 61%), and SlideShare (29% vs. 23%) more often than their B2B peers do, and Google+ (33% vs. 39%) and Pinterest (21% vs. 26%) less often.

"It's interesting to see the differences between the way software marketers and their peers from other industries approach content marketing," says Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute and co-author of Managing Content Marketing. "For instance they're more focused on lead generation and thought leadership as content marketing goals than their B2B peers are.

B2B Software Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America, produced by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and sponsored by International Data Group (IDG), reports the responses of 165 business-to-business (B2B) software marketers who were part of a larger, August 2012 survey of 1,416 North American B2B marketers representing diverse industries and a range of company sizes. The software report can be found here. Additional CMI research can be found here.

About the Content Marketing Institute
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) 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 is the largest content marketing-focused event; it is produced in Australia (March 2013) and North America (September 2013). CMI also produces the quarterly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. Get more content marketing resources at ContentMarketingInstitute.com. CMI is a division of Z Squared Media, a 2012 Inc. 500 company.

About International Data Group (IDG):
IDG is the leading technology media, events, and research company reaching more than 280 million technology buyers in 97 countries.

IDG Enterprise's media brands include Computerworld®, InfoWorld®, Network World®, CIO®, CSO®, ITworld®, CFOworld, and CITEworld. IDG's Consumer & SMB brands are Macworld®, PCWorld®, and TechHive™. This media network spans business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment, and video games. The IDG TechNetwork represents more than 550 independent websites in an ad network and exchange.

With expertise in digital branding, lead generation, and social media marketing, IDG Global Solutions delivers multinational programs to influence technology vendor prospects.

IDG also produces more than 700 technology and entertainment conferences and events worldwide.

SOURCE Content Marketing Institute