1
Manufacturing/
Processing
Industry
Report
B2B Content Marketing 2010:
2
FOREWORD
In September 2010, Junta42 and MarketingProfs in conjunction with the Business Marketing Association (BMA) and American
Business Media (ABM), released the largest study to date, 2010 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends,
showing how B2B marketers are using content within their marketing mix. This report takes a more granular look at how market-
ers from the manufacturing/processing industry are using content marketing.
Compared to other industries, manufacturing companies are differentiated in a number of ways:
They have ?rmly embraced new marketing tactics
Manufacturing ?rms have some of the highest adoption rates for new marketing tactics, including posting articles (80%), social
media (73%) and video (48%).
They’re focused on building brand awareness
As with marketers across all industries, 82% of B2B manufacturing respondents indicated that they rely on content marketing
to build brand awareness – with the overall average being 78%. The importance of this organizational goal for manufacturers is
somewhat surprising given that “brand awareness” as a tactic doesn’t directly generate leads and sales, which is usually the top
marketing goal of most B2B companies, including manufacturing ?rms.
They’re experiencing a disconnect between goals and measurement
Manufacturers listed their top content marketing goals as building brand awareness, customer retention / loyalty and lead
generation, yet 58% of respondents said their number one tactic for measuring these goals is web traf?c, and 51% of
respondents said they use qualitative feedback.
What is most interesting about these data points is the disconnect between manufacturing’s content marketing goals and how
they measure them. First, the Internet has changed the B2B buying cycle: prospects looking for goods and services evaluate
manufacturers through the online search process. If a manufacturer passes muster, the prospective customer then takes the next
step in the sales process.
Because B2B manufacturers are focused on developing content that builds brand awareness, they’re missing a crucial objective
of content marketing: developing content that helps drive the conversions that move prospects along the sales cycle. Secondly,
they’re measuring the effectiveness of brand awareness in one of least effective ways, i.e., by looking at web traf?c.
I hope this report helps you better understand how B2B marketers in the manufacturing/processing industry are executing on
content marketing.
Dianna Huff
Principal
DH Communications, Inc.
3
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
42%
43%
31%
41%
55%
61%
62%
42%
79%
78%
35%
39%
39%
48%
56%
57%
64%
65%
73%
80%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Webinars/webcasts
White papers
Promotional content in traditional media
Videos
Case studies
eNewsletters
In-person events
Print magazines
Social Media
Articles
Top 10 Content Marketing Tactics Used
Manufacturing All
DETAILED FINDINGS
?
USAGE AND EFFECTIVENESS
Content Marketing Tactics Used
In line with other B2B marketers, 84% of manufacturers are using content marketing. They rely on a core group of marketing
tactics that include a mix of the traditional (in-person events) and the new (social media), as well as of?ine (print magazines) and
online (videos). The top seven content marketing tactics used by manufacturers are:
• Articles (80%)
• Social media (73%)
• Print magazines (65%)
• In-person events (64%)
• eNewsletters (57%)
• Case studies (56%)
• Videos (48%)
Manufacturing marketers use white papers less often than B2B marketers overall (39% versus 43% respectively),
with video (48%) surpassing other digital tactics (podcasts, virtual conferences and e-books) by a wide margin.
Manufacturing marketing
use print magazines and
videos more often than
B2B marketers overall.
4
?
SOCIAL MEDIA DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS
Because B2B manufacturers use video as one of their top marketing tactics, it’s no surprise that their top social media
distribution channel is YouTube, with 50% of respondents indicating the site as their top channel – more than all marketers
combined (38%).
With the exception of YouTube, manufacturers are using social media to distribute content far less than their peers. This
is in line with the overall findings that manufacturers have adopted social media at a lower rate than their peers but video at a
higher rate.
55%
51%
54%
38%
41%
43%
46%
50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
YouTube
Percentage of Marketers Who Use Various
Social Media Sites to Distribute Content
Manufacturing All
With the exception of
YouTube, manufacturers
are using social media
to distribute content far
less than their peers.
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
5
56%
50%
34%
45%
53%
55%
72%
51%
31%
46%
64%
62%
30%
44%
64%
63%
71%
39%
21%
43%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Webinars/Webcasts
White Papers
Promotional Content in Traditional Media
Videos
Case Studies
eNewsletters
In-Person Events
Print Magazines
Social Media (Other than Blogs)
Articles
Effectiveness Ratings: Top 10 Content Marketing Tactics
Used in Manufacturing Organizations
Manufacturing All
?
CONTENT MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS
In addition to asking survey respondents to indicate which content marketing tactics they currently employ in their companies,
respondents were also asked to rate the effectiveness of each of these tactics in their marketing efforts on a scale of one (low
effectiveness) to ?ve (high effectiveness).
When considering the adoption rates of each tactic measured against its perceived effectiveness among those who use that
tactic, we ?nd a “con?dence gap.” That is, while companies may be invested in a number of content marketing tactics, they don’t
feel con?dent in how they’re using these tactics.
While it’s unclear if this lack of con?dence is due to true ineffectiveness of any given strategy or simply the inability to measure
effectiveness, this gap exists across all industries and company sizes.
The effectiveness ratings for the ?ve tactics that manufacturing marketers use the most often are:
• Articles: 43% effectiveness (80% usage)
• Social media (excluding blogs): 21% effectiveness (73% usage)
• Print magazines: 39% effectiveness (65% usage)
• In-person events: 71% effectiveness (64% usage)
• eNewsletters: 63% effectiveness (57% usage)
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
Other noteworthy observations include:
• Although manufacturers are have adopted print magazines more so than the average marketer
(65% versus 42%), they consider them to be less effective (39% effectiveness versus 51%).
• While manufacturers use white papers, case studies, eNewsletters and webinars at similar rates
as other marketers, they consider them more effective.
6
GOALS AND MEASUREMENT
?
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
As with all B2B marketers surveyed, “brand awareness” was one of the top organizational goals among manufacturing mar-
keters: 82% of manufacturing marketers indicated it was their number one goal. The top six goals for manufacturers:
• Brand awareness 82%
• Customer retention / loyalty 78%
• Lead generation 66%
• Customer recruitment 60%
• Sales 53%
• Web traf?c 50%
This data make sense as manufacturers often sell products through distributors, hence “sales” or “direct sales” isn’t as important as
“brand awareness” and “lead generation.” Manufacturers, especially small and mid-sized companies, often want to get traf?c to their sites
in order to forward leads to inside sales, distributors or manufacturers’ reps.
37%
52%
55%
51%
61%
63%
69%
78%
37%
40%
50%
53%
60%
66%
78%
82%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Lead Management/Nurturing
Thought Leadership
Website Traffic
Sales
Customer Recruitment
Lead Generation
Customer Retention/Loyalty
Brand Awareness
Organizational Goals for Content Marketing
Manufacturing All
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
7
?
MEASUREMENT CRITERIA
What doesn’t make sense, however, is how these goals are measured. Manufacturing ?rms indicated they use the following
measurement criteria:
• Web traf?c 58%
• Qualitative feedback 51%
• Sales lead quality 50%
• Direct sales 46%
• Sales lead quantity 39%
A disconnect exists between measuring “brand awareness” and “customer retention / loyalty” and the tactics used to measure
these goals: “Web traf?c,” “Qualitative feedback,” and “Sales lead quality.” Furthermore, only 28% of manufacturers listed SEO
rankings as a measurement tactic and only 22% listed inbound links – two of the best ways to drive online web traf?c
and build brand awareness.
13%
24%
20%
28%
27%
26%
28%
36%
49%
44%
44%
56%
17%
22%
26%
28%
28%
28%
29%
39%
46%
50%
51%
58%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Cost Savings
Inbound Links
Cross Selling
SEO Ranking
Lift of Company Awareness
Lift of Product/Service Awareness
Increased Customer Loyalty
Sales Lead Quantity
Direct Sales
Sales Lead Quality
Qualitative Feedback
Web Traffic
Measurement Criteria for
Content Marketing Success
Manufacturing All
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
8
BUDGETS AND PRODUCTION
?
CONTENT MARKETING SPENDING
Fifty-four percent of manufacturing ?rms indicated they would increase spending on content marketing in the next 12
months while 41% said their spend would remain the same. Of those who responded, 37% said they would increase their budgets
by 10% to 29%. Only 10% said they would increase budgets by 50% or more, and 3% expect to reduce budgets.
On average, manufacturers indicated they would increase spending by 13.8%, which is somewhat lower than the 17.6% reported overall.
On average, manufacturing companies plan to devote 22% of their marketing budgets to content marketing, which is a
little lower than the overall average of 26%.
Over a third (36%) of manufacturing ?rms plan on spending 10% to 24% of their budgets on content marketing, with 19% of ?rms saying
they would devote 5% to 9% of their budgets and 17% saying they would devote 25% to 49% of budgets to content marketing.
The majority of B2B manufacturers (51%) will spend between $5,000 and $99,000 on content creation, with the average being
$83,400, more than the overall average of $78,600.
Close to a quarter of manufacturing ?rms (24%) will spend between $25,000 and $99,999 on content distribution. The average
spend on content distribution among manufacturers is $375,000, higher than the overall average of all marketers of $301,000.
9
CHALLENGES IN CONTENT MARKETING
The main challenge for all marketers, no matter their vertical or industry, is creating engaging content. Thirty-two percent of manu-
facturing ?rms said this was their biggest challenge – albeit their response was lower than other industries surveyed (e.g., 41% of
IT respondents said it was their biggest challenge).
Surprisingly, “lack of executive buy-in” ranked relatively low as did “producing a variety of content.”
Here’s how manufacturing marketers ranked their challenges:
• Producing engaging content 32%
• Producing enough content 26%
• Budget to produce enough content 21%
• Lack of executive buy-in 12%
• Producing a variety of content 6%
10
RESEARCH DETAIL
Of the 1,124 respondents to the 2010 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends survey, 129 respondents
were from manufacturing ?rms. Respondents came from all sizes of companies – from small and mid-size to enterprise – as indi-
cated in the table below:
Number of Employees
20,000 ........................................................ 11%
10,000 – 19,999 ............................... 6%
5,000 – 9,999 ........................................ 4%
1,000 – 4,999 ........................................ 18%
250 – 999 ................................................. 11%
100 – 249 ................................................. 20%
50 – 99 ........................................................ 9%
10 – 49 ........................................................ 16%
6 – 9 ............................................................... 2%
2 – 5 ............................................................. 2%
For further information about this report, please contact:
Dianna Huff
Principal
DH Communications, Inc.
603-382-8093
[email protected]
Michele Linn
Content Development Director
Content Marketing Institute
248-840-0164
[email protected]
About Dianna Huff
Dianna Huff, principal of DH Communications, Inc., is an award-winning B2B Web marketing expert who helps B2B manufacturers
and companies get found in Google through SEO, content and social media. You can follow her on Twitter at @diannahuff or her
MarCom Writer blog.
Other B2B Content Marketing Reports
We have a series of other research reports based on the B2B Content Marketing research that you can download:
• Overall Findings
• Agriculture
• Computing and Software
• Professional Services
• Organizations with more than 1,000 employees
• Organizations with 100 – 999 employees
• Organizations with 10 – 99 employees
Want to be noti?ed of new research and get other how-to advice on content marketing? Sign up to become a
Content Marketing Institute member – it’s free!
doc_483683034.pdf
Manufacturing/
Processing
Industry
Report
B2B Content Marketing 2010:
2
FOREWORD
In September 2010, Junta42 and MarketingProfs in conjunction with the Business Marketing Association (BMA) and American
Business Media (ABM), released the largest study to date, 2010 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends,
showing how B2B marketers are using content within their marketing mix. This report takes a more granular look at how market-
ers from the manufacturing/processing industry are using content marketing.
Compared to other industries, manufacturing companies are differentiated in a number of ways:
They have ?rmly embraced new marketing tactics
Manufacturing ?rms have some of the highest adoption rates for new marketing tactics, including posting articles (80%), social
media (73%) and video (48%).
They’re focused on building brand awareness
As with marketers across all industries, 82% of B2B manufacturing respondents indicated that they rely on content marketing
to build brand awareness – with the overall average being 78%. The importance of this organizational goal for manufacturers is
somewhat surprising given that “brand awareness” as a tactic doesn’t directly generate leads and sales, which is usually the top
marketing goal of most B2B companies, including manufacturing ?rms.
They’re experiencing a disconnect between goals and measurement
Manufacturers listed their top content marketing goals as building brand awareness, customer retention / loyalty and lead
generation, yet 58% of respondents said their number one tactic for measuring these goals is web traf?c, and 51% of
respondents said they use qualitative feedback.
What is most interesting about these data points is the disconnect between manufacturing’s content marketing goals and how
they measure them. First, the Internet has changed the B2B buying cycle: prospects looking for goods and services evaluate
manufacturers through the online search process. If a manufacturer passes muster, the prospective customer then takes the next
step in the sales process.
Because B2B manufacturers are focused on developing content that builds brand awareness, they’re missing a crucial objective
of content marketing: developing content that helps drive the conversions that move prospects along the sales cycle. Secondly,
they’re measuring the effectiveness of brand awareness in one of least effective ways, i.e., by looking at web traf?c.
I hope this report helps you better understand how B2B marketers in the manufacturing/processing industry are executing on
content marketing.
Dianna Huff
Principal
DH Communications, Inc.
3
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
42%
43%
31%
41%
55%
61%
62%
42%
79%
78%
35%
39%
39%
48%
56%
57%
64%
65%
73%
80%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Webinars/webcasts
White papers
Promotional content in traditional media
Videos
Case studies
eNewsletters
In-person events
Print magazines
Social Media
Articles
Top 10 Content Marketing Tactics Used
Manufacturing All
DETAILED FINDINGS
?
USAGE AND EFFECTIVENESS
Content Marketing Tactics Used
In line with other B2B marketers, 84% of manufacturers are using content marketing. They rely on a core group of marketing
tactics that include a mix of the traditional (in-person events) and the new (social media), as well as of?ine (print magazines) and
online (videos). The top seven content marketing tactics used by manufacturers are:
• Articles (80%)
• Social media (73%)
• Print magazines (65%)
• In-person events (64%)
• eNewsletters (57%)
• Case studies (56%)
• Videos (48%)
Manufacturing marketers use white papers less often than B2B marketers overall (39% versus 43% respectively),
with video (48%) surpassing other digital tactics (podcasts, virtual conferences and e-books) by a wide margin.
Manufacturing marketing
use print magazines and
videos more often than
B2B marketers overall.
4
?
SOCIAL MEDIA DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS
Because B2B manufacturers use video as one of their top marketing tactics, it’s no surprise that their top social media
distribution channel is YouTube, with 50% of respondents indicating the site as their top channel – more than all marketers
combined (38%).
With the exception of YouTube, manufacturers are using social media to distribute content far less than their peers. This
is in line with the overall findings that manufacturers have adopted social media at a lower rate than their peers but video at a
higher rate.
55%
51%
54%
38%
41%
43%
46%
50%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
YouTube
Percentage of Marketers Who Use Various
Social Media Sites to Distribute Content
Manufacturing All
With the exception of
YouTube, manufacturers
are using social media
to distribute content far
less than their peers.
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
5
56%
50%
34%
45%
53%
55%
72%
51%
31%
46%
64%
62%
30%
44%
64%
63%
71%
39%
21%
43%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Webinars/Webcasts
White Papers
Promotional Content in Traditional Media
Videos
Case Studies
eNewsletters
In-Person Events
Print Magazines
Social Media (Other than Blogs)
Articles
Effectiveness Ratings: Top 10 Content Marketing Tactics
Used in Manufacturing Organizations
Manufacturing All
?
CONTENT MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS
In addition to asking survey respondents to indicate which content marketing tactics they currently employ in their companies,
respondents were also asked to rate the effectiveness of each of these tactics in their marketing efforts on a scale of one (low
effectiveness) to ?ve (high effectiveness).
When considering the adoption rates of each tactic measured against its perceived effectiveness among those who use that
tactic, we ?nd a “con?dence gap.” That is, while companies may be invested in a number of content marketing tactics, they don’t
feel con?dent in how they’re using these tactics.
While it’s unclear if this lack of con?dence is due to true ineffectiveness of any given strategy or simply the inability to measure
effectiveness, this gap exists across all industries and company sizes.
The effectiveness ratings for the ?ve tactics that manufacturing marketers use the most often are:
• Articles: 43% effectiveness (80% usage)
• Social media (excluding blogs): 21% effectiveness (73% usage)
• Print magazines: 39% effectiveness (65% usage)
• In-person events: 71% effectiveness (64% usage)
• eNewsletters: 63% effectiveness (57% usage)
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
Other noteworthy observations include:
• Although manufacturers are have adopted print magazines more so than the average marketer
(65% versus 42%), they consider them to be less effective (39% effectiveness versus 51%).
• While manufacturers use white papers, case studies, eNewsletters and webinars at similar rates
as other marketers, they consider them more effective.
6
GOALS AND MEASUREMENT
?
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
As with all B2B marketers surveyed, “brand awareness” was one of the top organizational goals among manufacturing mar-
keters: 82% of manufacturing marketers indicated it was their number one goal. The top six goals for manufacturers:
• Brand awareness 82%
• Customer retention / loyalty 78%
• Lead generation 66%
• Customer recruitment 60%
• Sales 53%
• Web traf?c 50%
This data make sense as manufacturers often sell products through distributors, hence “sales” or “direct sales” isn’t as important as
“brand awareness” and “lead generation.” Manufacturers, especially small and mid-sized companies, often want to get traf?c to their sites
in order to forward leads to inside sales, distributors or manufacturers’ reps.
37%
52%
55%
51%
61%
63%
69%
78%
37%
40%
50%
53%
60%
66%
78%
82%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Lead Management/Nurturing
Thought Leadership
Website Traffic
Sales
Customer Recruitment
Lead Generation
Customer Retention/Loyalty
Brand Awareness
Organizational Goals for Content Marketing
Manufacturing All
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
7
?
MEASUREMENT CRITERIA
What doesn’t make sense, however, is how these goals are measured. Manufacturing ?rms indicated they use the following
measurement criteria:
• Web traf?c 58%
• Qualitative feedback 51%
• Sales lead quality 50%
• Direct sales 46%
• Sales lead quantity 39%
A disconnect exists between measuring “brand awareness” and “customer retention / loyalty” and the tactics used to measure
these goals: “Web traf?c,” “Qualitative feedback,” and “Sales lead quality.” Furthermore, only 28% of manufacturers listed SEO
rankings as a measurement tactic and only 22% listed inbound links – two of the best ways to drive online web traf?c
and build brand awareness.
13%
24%
20%
28%
27%
26%
28%
36%
49%
44%
44%
56%
17%
22%
26%
28%
28%
28%
29%
39%
46%
50%
51%
58%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Cost Savings
Inbound Links
Cross Selling
SEO Ranking
Lift of Company Awareness
Lift of Product/Service Awareness
Increased Customer Loyalty
Sales Lead Quantity
Direct Sales
Sales Lead Quality
Qualitative Feedback
Web Traffic
Measurement Criteria for
Content Marketing Success
Manufacturing All
Source: B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing/Processing Industry Report
8
BUDGETS AND PRODUCTION
?
CONTENT MARKETING SPENDING
Fifty-four percent of manufacturing ?rms indicated they would increase spending on content marketing in the next 12
months while 41% said their spend would remain the same. Of those who responded, 37% said they would increase their budgets
by 10% to 29%. Only 10% said they would increase budgets by 50% or more, and 3% expect to reduce budgets.
On average, manufacturers indicated they would increase spending by 13.8%, which is somewhat lower than the 17.6% reported overall.
On average, manufacturing companies plan to devote 22% of their marketing budgets to content marketing, which is a
little lower than the overall average of 26%.
Over a third (36%) of manufacturing ?rms plan on spending 10% to 24% of their budgets on content marketing, with 19% of ?rms saying
they would devote 5% to 9% of their budgets and 17% saying they would devote 25% to 49% of budgets to content marketing.
The majority of B2B manufacturers (51%) will spend between $5,000 and $99,000 on content creation, with the average being
$83,400, more than the overall average of $78,600.
Close to a quarter of manufacturing ?rms (24%) will spend between $25,000 and $99,999 on content distribution. The average
spend on content distribution among manufacturers is $375,000, higher than the overall average of all marketers of $301,000.
9
CHALLENGES IN CONTENT MARKETING
The main challenge for all marketers, no matter their vertical or industry, is creating engaging content. Thirty-two percent of manu-
facturing ?rms said this was their biggest challenge – albeit their response was lower than other industries surveyed (e.g., 41% of
IT respondents said it was their biggest challenge).
Surprisingly, “lack of executive buy-in” ranked relatively low as did “producing a variety of content.”
Here’s how manufacturing marketers ranked their challenges:
• Producing engaging content 32%
• Producing enough content 26%
• Budget to produce enough content 21%
• Lack of executive buy-in 12%
• Producing a variety of content 6%
10
RESEARCH DETAIL
Of the 1,124 respondents to the 2010 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends survey, 129 respondents
were from manufacturing ?rms. Respondents came from all sizes of companies – from small and mid-size to enterprise – as indi-
cated in the table below:
Number of Employees
20,000 ........................................................ 11%
10,000 – 19,999 ............................... 6%
5,000 – 9,999 ........................................ 4%
1,000 – 4,999 ........................................ 18%
250 – 999 ................................................. 11%
100 – 249 ................................................. 20%
50 – 99 ........................................................ 9%
10 – 49 ........................................................ 16%
6 – 9 ............................................................... 2%
2 – 5 ............................................................. 2%
For further information about this report, please contact:
Dianna Huff
Principal
DH Communications, Inc.
603-382-8093
[email protected]
Michele Linn
Content Development Director
Content Marketing Institute
248-840-0164
[email protected]
About Dianna Huff
Dianna Huff, principal of DH Communications, Inc., is an award-winning B2B Web marketing expert who helps B2B manufacturers
and companies get found in Google through SEO, content and social media. You can follow her on Twitter at @diannahuff or her
MarCom Writer blog.
Other B2B Content Marketing Reports
We have a series of other research reports based on the B2B Content Marketing research that you can download:
• Overall Findings
• Agriculture
• Computing and Software
• Professional Services
• Organizations with more than 1,000 employees
• Organizations with 100 – 999 employees
• Organizations with 10 – 99 employees
Want to be noti?ed of new research and get other how-to advice on content marketing? Sign up to become a
Content Marketing Institute member – it’s free!
doc_483683034.pdf