Welcome to the 2023 Converge B2B Content Promotion Report.
What can you expect in this year's report? More of the same, really - around 30 pages of insight from the biggest number of participants we've ever had (364 content marketers took part this year).
We have, again, shown how the results differ from the previous year's report (in red and green percentages), so you can get an idea of any major change in trends or activity, and we've invited some of our friends to share their thoughts on the results and the insights we can extract from them.
Rand Fishkin (SparkToro):
"This report shows that marketers are going where they have to: away from purely SEO-keyword-focused content and toward a broader group of strategies. Away from pure lead gen toward more brand visibility and user engagement goals. Away from measuring success based on search rankings or direct conversions and toward what we used to derisively call 'vanity metrics' like social followers, engagement, and visibility. The evolution of privacy laws, the death of third-party cookies, the shift toward zero-click everything from the major search and social platforms is driving this, and marketers are keeping up."
Andy Crestodina (Orbit Media Studios):
"I'm thrilled to see more focus on case studies, the one bottom-of-funnel format that directly impacts sales. This is great news.
I'm a little sad but not surprised to see the dip in podcast promotion. It's a tough channel and a test of endurance for a lot of content strategists. But it can be very, very effective marketers who stick with it - combine it with other formats and keep promoting it all."
Mike Allton (Agorapulse):
"What's troubling is that, despite over 88% of Content Marketers seeing value and positive impact from content promotion, 65% feel they aren't spending enough time on it - with a whopping 82.1% admitting it's because they don't have enough time due to other tasks.
But here's the issue, simply creating content isn't enough today. Content Marketers, particularly in the B2B space, absolutely must be in that precious 25.6% minority who set aside more than 4 hours a week to promote their content. Anything less and the brand will see diminishing returns from their content activity in the coming years."
Robert Rose (The Content Advisory)
"I’m struck by the marked increase in people who say they are not only happy with their results in promoting content, but the relative importance it seems to have to those who are creating the content. But, simultaneously, the vast majority believe they are not spending nearly enough time time working on it. If our experience has any insight it’s that this “busy-ness” is filled with meeting the demand for ever-more content assets.
With no true repurposing, or repackaging plan in place, the demand for “more” content is always prevalent. Thus, the irony is that the team can’t spend the requisite time in promoting all the great work that’s been demanded of them. So, interestingly, the “fix” in getting content promotion right – means focusing on the entire process to the left of the publish button. If content teams can get the ideation, prioritization, management and production process optimized, they’ll have a much increased availability to get the promotion and measurement piece optimized."
In addition to their thoughts, we'd love to see what you think of the report and how you interpret the results too, so please feel free to share them with us on social media.
Our preferred platforms are LinkedIn and Twitter (or X, I guess?). And the best way for us to see your thoughts is to use the hashtag #contentpromotionreport2023 on either of those platforms.
So, dive in at your convenience and, if you'd like to discuss anything in the report then please let us know at hello@converge.today.