So, what happened next?
CMI and MarketingProfs fielded their annual survey during the summer of 2020. They found: “Content marketers are resilient. Most have met the challenges of the pandemic head‐on.” The found the following responses to the pandemic:
- Increased time spent talking with customers: 30 percent of B2B and 26 percent of B2C marketers
- Revisited their customer/buyer personas: 25 percent of B2B and 18 percent of B2C marketers
- Reexamined the customer journey: 31 percent of B2B and 34 percent of B2C marketers
- Changed their targeting/messaging strategy: 70 percent of B2B and 63 percent of B2C marketers
- Changed their distribution strategy: 53 percent of B2B and 46 percent of B2C marketers
- Adjusted their editorial calendar: 64 percent of B2B and 54 percent of B2C marketers
- Put more resources toward social media/online communities: 40 percent of B2B and 43 percent of B2C marketers
- Changed their website: 40 percent of B2B and 37 percent of B2C marketers
- Changed their products/services: 26 percent of B2B and 25 percent of B2C marketers
- Adjusted their KPIs: 20 percent of B2B and 23 percent of B2C marketers
- Changed their content marketing metrics (e.g., set up new analytics/dashboards): 14 percent of B2B and 13 percent of B2C marketers
In other words, both B2B and B2C marketers totally overhauled the process for creating a content marketing plan from stem to stern. For some, 2020 was the year of quickly adapting their content marketing strategy. For others, it was the year to finally develop one.
As Stephanie Stahl, the General Manager of the CMI, said when the 12th annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report was published on Oct. 13, 2021, “Companies are waking up to the power of content marketing due in part to the pandemic. That’s not some grand pronouncement from the Content Marketing Institute. It’s a recurring refrain we heard from you (or content marketers like you) in our 2022 B2B research.”
She then shared three of the open‐ended responses in the latest survey to the question, “How does your content marketing look post‐pandemic?”
- “Who would have thought that a pandemic would be the thing to finally bring content marketing out from behind the shadows and into the forefront of marketing communication?”
- “The pandemic reinforced the importance of our content marketing strategy. There had been a commitment to it, but now that commitment is company‐wide and there is more collaboration between marketing and sales.”
- “The pandemic allowed our content marketing approach to come front and center for the whole organization and our leadership team. We now understand the power of what content can do. Our challenge is to be able to tie it into a revenue center that generates leads for the firm.”
A year later, the 12th annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report, which was published October 13, 2021, said: “The key theme that emerged was this: The pandemic awoke a sleeping giant—content marketing, that is.”
It continued, “Without in‐person events and face‐to‐face selling, many who had previously paid little attention to content marketing suddenly became aware of its power. More content marketers got a seat at the table and helped keep many businesses on their audiences’ radar. Some discovered new audiences altogether.”
And report concluded, “The research also confirmed what many of us already knew: Content marketers are some of the fiercest business pros around. In the most difficult of times, they get the job done—and many come through more creative and stronger than before.”
So, you will want to adopt this new planning process—because it’s been battle tested.
Leave a Reply