If there’s one digital marketing strategy that budding startup and small B2C companies should utilize the most nowadays, it’s definitely content marketing. According to the latest B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends from CMI and MarketingProfs, some 55% of B2C marketers reported their content marketing efforts are somewhat more successful compared a year ago, while 57% say they plan to boost their content marketing spend in 2019.
These statistics only prove that the effectiveness of content marketing for companies in the B2C space is just getting better and better each year. However, like other weapons in the digital marketing arsenal, a content marketing strategy for B2C market also requires some tweaking and tailoring in order to ensure that all its parts are still relevant and on par with today’s competition.
To help you get started, we’ve compiled in this infographic some interesting facts and statistics from CMI and MarketingProfs report which details the hottest B2C content marketing trends you should know about in 2019.
1. Creating Content That Builds Loyalty as Area of Importance
Just like the B2B marketers, the majority (56%) B2C marketers also spent the most on content creation than on any areas of content marketing in the last 12 months.
This increased in spending can be justified by the fact that most of these marketers are focusing their content creation efforts to retain their customers. According to the report, 81% of the B2C marketers say they’re concerned with creating content that builds loyalty with existing clients or customers.
Such focus on creating content that builds customer loyalty totally makes sense – as marketers shift from product- or service-focused contents to content pieces that are actually helpful and relevant to the needs of their present customers, the higher their chances of winning long-term patrons for their business.
2. Strong Commitment as Key To Success
The annual report from CMI and MarketingProfs revealed that 64% of B2C marketers are extremely or very committed to their content marketing efforts. Those marketers also reported a higher level of an overall content marketing success than less-committed B2C marketers.
The most committed B2C marketers also are more likely to report using content marketing successfully to achieve goals such as educating and nurturing their target audience. Meanwhile, 71% of less committed B2C marketers are more likely to use paid distribution channels compared to 66% of the most committed B2C marketers that do the same.
3. Documented Strategy Still an Issue
While a majority (74%) of B2C marketers have a content marketing strategy, only 33% of the surveyed B2C marketers have their strategy written down, which is quite confounding considering that a documented content marketing strategy is often a key indicator of success.
Those who have a documented content marketing strategy cites the following benefits for doing so:
- Aligns team around common goals – 77%
- Keeps the team focused on documented priorities – 65%
- Makes it easier to determine which type of content to develop – 65%
- Creates accountability – 61%
- Helps team allocate resources to optimize desired results – 56%
- Provides clarity on the targeted audience – 56%
- Makes it easier to identify which metrics to focus on – 53%
- Yields more accurate budgetary information – 16%
4. Social Media and Website Analytics – Top Tools For Audience Research
A successful B2C content marketing starts with in-depth audience research. According to the report, social media listening (70%) and website analytics (69%) are the top techniques B2C marketers use when researching their target audience for content marketing. The results aren’t surprising considering the fact that over half of social media users interact with brands more than once a month.
Meanwhile, only 37% reported that they talk directly with their customers as part of their audience research efforts – this despite the fact that first-hand knowledge from real customers are the most accurate source of audience data a business could possibly get a hand with to improve their targeting efforts.
5. Video as the Leading Content Format
69% of all surveyed B2C content marketers reported they increased their use of audio/visual content such as videos, live streaming, and webinars in their content marketing efforts. It is followed by written digital content such as articles and blogs (64%), and images such as infographics, photos, charts, and GIFs (63%)
This trend only shows how video marketing is fast becoming the new weapon of choice among B2C content marketers nowadays. With 85% of consumers wanting more videos from brands, there’s no question as to why B2C content marketers would not invest more of their resources into this content format in 2019.
6. Social Media Stories As The Most Developed Type of Content
Social media stories – those vertical video content that usually lasts for 24 hours and was popularized by Snapchat – is the top content marketing format developed by B2C marketers for the last 12 months. 68% of all surveyed B2C marketers reported they use or developed social media stories in 2018 – a trend which is expected to continue in 2019, especially for those that utilize Instagram in their content marketing efforts.
According to ClickZ, There are currently more than 400 million people consuming Stories on Instagram on a daily basis, while Facebook is trying to integrate Stories on both social media app and messaging platform.
7. Changes to SEO As Top B2C Content Marketing Issue
The year 2018 was a challenging year for most B2C content marketers, and 2019 will be no different. The CMI report also detailed the top issues of importance facing B2C marketers, in which changes to SEO/search algorithm tops the chart (63%), followed by changes to social media algorithms (59%), and content marketing as revenue center (44%).
Meanwhile, a significant minority of the respondents cited AI (19%) and preparing content for voice search (22%) as a concern, even though these topics have been thoroughly discussed in B2C content marketing realm for the past year.
Summary
As the year 2019 unfolds, there are a lot of highly anticipated trends and shifts that will take place in the realm of B2C content marketing. Make sure to be on the lookout on these trends and learn to leverage some of them in your strategy this year before your competitors do so that you can stay competitive and relevant in the long run.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.