ENTERPRISE CONTENT MARKETING IN IRELAND

Massive enterprises are difficult to market for. Throw in the fact that some products are for consumers and some are for businesses, and you’ve got a whole different beast to tame. Nearly half of our Enterprise respondents know exactly how difficult that is to do.

Building a strategy and running it as a one person show is rare – just 25 percent are the only member of their content marketing team. The majority (55%) have 3-5 people on staff, and 20% have 5-10 team members.

Enterprise content marketers have yet to feel they’ve fully mastered content marketing. The majority (58%) feel that while they’ve made progress, they’re a ways off from having a strategy that delivers effortless results seamlessly between the two target audiences.

Even so, the fact that over two-thirds of Enterprise marketers are experiencing success is an indication of the infrastructure that these large corporations are putting in place to support them. Enterprise marketers’ lack of problems in relation to their B2B or B2C counterparts is just further evidence that they’ve been given the greenlight – and the resources – to do amazing work.

Enterprise companies do a bit of everything, so it’s no surprise that the goal of their content marketing activities is a bit all over the place.

At a very high level, these organisations are focused on brand awareness – just because they’re some of the biggest doesn’t mean that customers know they’re the best.

WHY DOES YOUR COMPANY USE CONTENT MARKETING?

1. Brand awareness
2. Website traffic
3. Customer engagement

Lead generation trails closely as the fourth key objective, which may have something to do with the fact that curb appeal can be a powerful motivator when paired with the credibility that larger companies often have.

How are these companies achieving their content-driven goals? With a lot of help from email and a little help from everything else.

There’s an even mix of multi-media content that goes hand in hand with the natural territory of Enterprise buyers; it's an audience that lives nearly everywhere and anywhere.

And apparently buyers can’t get enough of it – 74% of companies are producing more content than they did one year ago. In the meantime they’ve gotten good at it: 69% think their content marketing is an effective tool.

The larger the market, the more content a company needs. Enterprise marketers are pumping considerable portions of their budget into content nowadays so that they can reach their massive audiences.

Will these figures increase? Our data shows that a slight minority want to up their spend over the next 12 months, with 53% planning to increase their content marketing budget over the next year. But a considerable 34% are unsure if they will and 13% are adamant that they won’t.

Conventional wisdom would say those who don’t have a documented content marketing strategy would be unsure whether their efforts constitute an increase in spend.

In reality, we found that 75% of those with no documented content marketing strategy are increasing their spend and that just 25% of them are unsure whether they are.

Enterprise companies are giving their content marketing teams the senior backing and technical tools to get the job done.

If there are any obstacles that Enterprise content marketers face, they’re around resourcing and the ability to engage with multiple audiences.

The challenges aren’t having an overwhelming effect on smaller assets though. Given the diversity of their audiences, Enterprise companies have to maintain the quick speed of delivery that the B2C industry demands while taking into account the scaling of tactics that the B2B side of the business often necessitates.

• The average social media post takes 1.5 days to complete.
• The average blog post (650 words) takes three days to finish.
• The average video (60 seconds) takes two weeks to push live.
• The average eBook (20 pages) takes two months to publish.

Given the wide range of products their companies sell, platforms that have a mix of audiences tend to be Enterprise marketers’ favourites when they are amplifying content. Because of this, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram rank as the top four most commonly used social channels to promote content.

Facebook and Twitter are the top two most effective platforms when it comes to promoting content for Enterprise companies.

Despite YouTube and media partnerships being used by just 50% and 40% of respondents, they’re seen as the third and fourth most effective options. LinkedIn and Instagram trailed closely with largely average scores.