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Business-to-business (B2B) marketers' confidence in content marketing continues to grow; content marketing usage rates are up from last year; and, not surprisingly, marketers with a documented content strategy are having the greatest success, according to just-released research.

The report, B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America (PDF), is published by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute, and sponsored by Brightcove.

Some 93% of B2B marketers in North America are using content marketing, and, of those, 42% consider themselves effective at content marketing, up from 36% last year, the study found.

For the first time, the annual study asked marketers whether they have a documented content strategy (44% do) and a person who oversees content marketing strategy (73% do). Marketers who have a documented strategy are not only more effective but also less challenged with every aspect of content marketing.

Marketers are also continuing to invest both budget and time in content marketing. On average, B2B marketers allocate 30% of their budgets to content marketing, and 58% of marketers plan to increase content market spend over the next 12 months.

Compared with last year, marketers are using more content tactics (13 vs. 12) and more social media platforms to distribute content (6 vs. 5). Moreover, 73% of are producing more content than they were a year ago.

Below, additional findings from B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America.

B2B Content Marketing Tactics

Content marketing tactic usage has remained relatively consistent with last year's usage levels.

Infographics use increased most from last year: 51% of B2B marketers said they use infographics, compared with last year's 38%.

Tactic Effectiveness

For the fourth year in a row, in-person events have been cited by the greatest number of B2B marketers as being an effective tactic.

Among best-in-class B2B marketers, however, a greater proportion cite blogs as being effective: 79% say so, compared with 76% saying in-person events are effective.

Only 29% of the least effective B2B marketers say blogs are effective.

Social Media for Content Distribution

More B2B content marketers this year than last are using each of the social media platforms listed here:

Social media with the greatest increase in use from last year are SlideShare (40% vs. 23%), Google+ (55% vs. 39%), and Instagram (22% vs. 7%).

B2B Content Marketing Challenges

Aside from lack of time—a universal complaint—most B2B marketers consistently cite producing enough content and producing the kind of content that engages as challenges.

Download the full report here (PDF), or view the full SlideShare presentation now:

B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America from MarketingProfs

About the data: B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America (PDF) reports findings gathered from the fourth annual Content Marketing Survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, and sponsored by Brightcove. Nearly 4,400 marketers from around the world, from a range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes, responded to the survey in July and August 2013. Among them, 1,217 respondents identified themselves as B2B marketers in North America.

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11759/2014-b2b-content-marketing-benchmarks-budgets-and-trends#ixzz2gaaOYPVl

It is becoming less and less often that I see a national brand, or even a local Mom and Pop store without some form of social media profile.  This is a good thing. However, more often than not they are only using Facebook and social profiles are not integrated with other marketing communications, or worse yet, not even tied to their traditional marketing strategy.

Wherever there it the potential to communicate with a consumer, there is the potential for integration. In teaching my graduate level social media marketing courses, it is often noted students can see so many potential areas their employers could integrate a social element. Many times a quick assessment of the competitions social media presence can incite a few ideas.

Traditional marketing and social marketing must be integrated andnurtured in order to realize the full potential of a very powerful combo. Without fully integrating the two, businesses can take on great risks related to over-dependence on one or over-use of another. Businesses must define their strategy, roles, and expectations of social media before both integration and implementation of a social strategy.

This month we visit concept #12 from my series 15 Social Media Concepts to Make you a More Marketable Social Media Professional:

Concept 12:  The importance of integrating traditional with social strategy.  This is often easier said than done and involves a lot of time, people, and patience.

Social is also a great way to help clarify the messages you send through traditional marketing.  With social media, you can create a dialogue with your customers to ensure the right messages are relayed. The key is consistency and relevancy. Integration of social media with traditional marketing requires the understanding that there are differences between the ways we communicate.  Keep in mind, anywhere communication becomes interactive can be considered a form of social media.

With social, we are now talking with our customers as opposed to at them via traditional methods. Likewise, social media is both outbound marketingand inbound marketing.

The following are just a few ways you can easily integrate social with existing traditional Marketing initiatives. Note that not all are suitable for all readers:

If you would like more information on any of the above tactics, please let me know in the comments below or contact me via Twitter @drjrogers.

Integrating social media and traditional marketing can be challenging. The right mixture of social and traditional ensures maximized positive results.  Keep in mind, if multiple people are representing the brand on social, tone of voice should be uniform across all marketing communication and should represent the brands image.

What local businesses in your area are “doing it right”? What about national brands? Comment below.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net