The document summarizes the key findings of a research report on B2B content marketing and lead generation. Some of the main findings include: - Companies' primary objectives for content marketing are new customer acquisition and raising brand visibility. - Few companies report being very successful in achieving their content marketing objectives. - Ebooks, case studies, and third-party research are the most valuable types of content. - Most content is gated, requiring registration, but some of the most effective content like infographics and case studies are often not gated.

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The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B
Content Marketing and Lead Generation
Key Research Findings and Analyst Insights
MEDIA PARTNERS:

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Greetings
Welcome to The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation.
Several months in the making, this collaborative research effort was designed to
provide a rich, up-to-date snapshot of how B2B companies are creating, licensing and
utilizing content assets in their incessant quest to demonstrate thought leadership,
raise brand visibility, and, perhaps most importantly, generate qualified leads.
While there was already good research out there on B2B content marketing (kudos to
the Content Marketing Institute, in particular, for their outstanding work over the past 5
years), we found that there remained a number of unexplored areas that warranted
further investigation.We believed that capturing the right data – from hundreds of
marketers with first-hand experience – and gaining actionable insights into these areas
could benefit not only our company, given our purview, but countless others, as well.
To what extent are companies outsourcing content creation or licensing third-party
content assets? How are they utilizing these assets? How much are they spending?
How are they measuring performance? Are their investments paying off? What are the
challenges?Who is furthest down the path? The research findings help answer these
and many other questions while providing B2B marketers with valuable guidance for
taking their content marketing and lead generation activities to the next level.
Best of luck!
Jeff Zabin
Founder and CEO
Starfleet Media

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Greetings
We’re excited to have partnered with Starfleet Media on The 2014 Benchmark Report on
B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation. Our mission is to provide resources and
continuing education and support for sales and marketing professionals around the
world. Reports like this help us keep a finger on the pulse of what's happening, as well
as the challenges faced by sales and marketing teams.
If you're in the B2B space and focused on content marketing and lead generation for
your business, whether you're part of a sales team or part of a marketing team, know
that you're not alone.There's a lot of valuable information contained in this report and
we hope that it helps you as you develop your marketing strategies for the remainder
of 2014 and work to fine-tune your budgets, resource allocations and marketing
strategies for 2015.
And if you're looking for a deeper dive into topics related to content marketing, lead
generation and developing effective integrated marketing strategies, we hope you'll
attend one of our upcoming events.The events are designed for sales and marketing
leaders just like you.
We hope to see you there.
Shawn Elledge
CEO
Integrated Marketing Summit & Demandcon

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36%
91%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Retain existing customers
Acquire new customers
Big-Picture Objectives
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 4
What are your company’s primary objectives for investing in content
marketing in the first place?
First and foremost, content marketing is about getting new prospects in the door
• Companies are more than 2.5-times more likely to be focused on using content
marketing for new customer acquisition than for customer retention purposes.

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Granular Objectives
47%
56%
64%
72%
81%
86%
89%
93%
0 20 40 60 80 100
Educate the marketplace
Reduce traditional marketing costs
Demonstrate thought leadership
Improve search engine ranking
Drive increased website traffic
Generate better leads
Generate more leads
Raise brand visibility
What are your company’s primary objectives for investing in content
marketing in the first place?
How successful have companies been in achieving these objectives?
• Fewer than one-eighth (12%) of survey respondents report that they have been
“very successful”in achieving their primary objectives for content marketing.
• Fewer than one-third (30%) of survey respondents report that they have been
“successful”in achieving their primary objectives for content marketing.
• More than one-third (35% )of survey respondents report that they have“not been
successful”in achieving their primary objectives for content marketing.
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 5

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The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 6
Fast Fact
Marketers rate“raise branding visibility”as their
number one objective with content marketing.
This is true across nearly all industries, all
geographies and all company sizes.

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Content Popularity
How many content assets? Which ones have proven to be the most valuable?
• Companies across all industries report that they produced or licensed an average of
4.5 new content assets over the past 12 months.
• Cross-industry software providers produced or licensed an average of 7.5 new
content assets over the past 12 months while industry-specific software providers
produced or licensed an average of 5 new assets during this same period.
• Non-software providers produced or licensed an average of only 3.5 new assets
• Survey respondents ranked company-branded eBooks, case studies and third- party
research reports as having created the most value for their companies.
Which, if any, of the following content assets has your company
put to use in the past 12 months?
9%
14%
21%
32%
39%
41%
53%
63%
69%
0 20 40 60 80
Infographic(s) – licensed from a third party
Buyer’s guide(s) – company-branded only
Research report(s) – company-branded only
Webinar /other video(s) – with a third party
Research report(s) – licensed from a third party
Infographic(s) – company-branded only
eBook(s) – company-branded only
Webinar /other video(s) – company-branded only
Case studies / client success stories
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 7

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To Gate or Not to Gate
What percentage of the content assets listed on the previous
page are gated (registration required to download) versus
ungated (no registration required)?
Content assets need to be gated to generate leads (but not to be valuable)
• Infographics are rarely gated but nonetheless rated valuable by 92% of
marketers for their ability to drive website traffic and create brand awareness.
• Case studies are also rarely gated but rated valuable by 90% of marketers for
their ability to substantiate benefits and results via client testimonials.
• Some content assets, such as recorded webinars, may be ungated on some
platforms (e.g., YouTube) and gated on others (e.g., the company website).
80%
Gated
(registration
required to
access content)
20%
Ungated (no
registration
required to
access content)
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 8

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The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 9
Fast Fact
Most companies are using content marketing to
generate not only more leads but also better-quality
leads – as a magnet to attract those needles in a
haystack. In fact, 82% of marketers seeking to improve
lead quantity are also seeking to improve lead quality.

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Outsourcing Functions
Which, if any, of the following content marketing and lead generation
functions did your company outsource over the past 12 months?
18%
21%
27%
51%
64%
68%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Search engine marketing
Content landing page creation
Content marketing strategy
Demand generation
Content asset design
Content development (writing and
editorial)
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 10
Outsourcing of certain functions is on the rise, regardless of company size
• Marketers report that their plans to outsource over the next 12 months will
increase slightly in the areas of demand generation (54% plan to outsource)
and content marketing strategy (35% plan to outsource).
• Marketers report that their plans to outsource over the next 12 months will
remain roughly the same in all other areas.
• Very large and large companies are nearly as likely to outsource content
development and design functions as midsize and small companies that may
lack in-house resources (63% compared to 69%).

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Distribution Tactics
Which, if any, of the following content distribution tactics has
your company used over the past 12 months to generate leads?
4%
6%
6%
7%
7%
10%
12%
14%
17%
18%
26%
34%
38%
40%
46%
58%
69%
72%
84%
85%
90%
92%
96%
0 20 40 60 80 100
Promoted Tweets
Print advertising / promotion
Outsourced telephone marketing / promotion
Paid banner ads
Facebook sponsored posts
LinkedIn Ads
Content discovery platforms (e.g., Outbrain, Taboola)
Paid content placement in trade media
Content syndication platforms (e.g., Madison Logic, Netline)
Pinterest
Bylined articles in trade publications
SlideShare
Search engine marketing on Google (i.e., AdWords)
Press releases
Google+
LinkedIn Groups
YouTube / Vimeo
LinkedIn updates
Email newsletters and/or other email marketing
Facebook posts
Blogging on company website
Tweets
Sales and account management team outreach
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 11
“Let me send you follow-up materials”is the top content distribution tactic
• Social media sites account for half of the top ten content distribution tactics.
• Nine of the top ten content distribution tactics are essentially free vehicles; only
press releases can be said to fall into the“paid promotion”category.

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Fast Fact
Marketers use social media (92% tweet) far more
extensively than paid search (38% use Google AdWords)
to help generate leads. They employ an average of 3.5
social media platforms to promote their content assets.
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 12

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Optimization Tactics
28%
Do it
72%
Don't do it
12%
Do it
88%
Don't do it
SEO / landing page
optimization
Progressive
profiling
42%
Do it
58%
Don't do it
A/B and/or
multivariate testing
Which, if any, of the following content optimization tactics has
your company used over the past 12 months to generate leads?
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 13
What are“optimization tactics”? Good question. Here are some basic definitions.
• Landing page optimization is a category that, technically, includes progressive
profiling and A/B testing. With SEO, however, the focus is on performance
improvement via keywords, title tags, META descriptions, headlines, URLs, etc..
• Progressive Profiling is technology that makes it possible to display new form
fields to prospects based on the information previously collected on them.
• A/B and multivariate testing refer to randomized experiments with different
variants of a landing page to determine which version performs the best.

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Third-Party Content
Percent of marketers who“agree”or
“strongly agree”that unbiased third-
party content is generally perceived
as more credible than company-
branded content
89
Percent of marketers who“agree”or
“strongly agree”that unbiased
third-party content generally
produces higher-quality leads than
company-branded content
76
Percent of marketers who view the
lack of exclusivity with multi-
sponsored third-party content as
problematic (with 22% viewing the
sharing leads as problematic)
27
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 14

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Related Spending
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 15
Spending on content marketing will increase for most companies— some by a lot
• Almost two-thirds (63%) of marketers plan to allocate a greater portion of their
marketing budgets to content marketing over the next 12 months.
• Almost one-quarter (23% )of companies plan to more than double their
spending on content marketing over the next 12 months.
• None of the survey respondents indicated that their companies plan to reduce
their spending on content marketing over the next 12 months.
16%
3%
9%
17%
14%
13%
10%
8%
7%
3%
0%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Don't know
10 percent or less
11 to 20 percent
21 to 30 percent
31 to 40 percent
41 to 50 percent
51 to 60 percent
61 to 70 percent
71 to 80 percent
81 to 90 percent
More than 90 percent
What percent of your company’s overall marketing budget was
allocated to content marketing during the past 12 months?

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Measuring Success
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 16
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” - Peter Drucker
• “Number of leads” is easier to track than “quality of leads,” although the latter
is clearly the more important metric; “Quality of leads” and “sales conversions”
go hand in hand.
• Large and very large companies are nearly twice as likely as small and very
small companies (62% compared to 34%) to calculate marketing ROI.
31%
35%
44%
52%
66%
78%
84%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Brand awareness / social shares / media
mentions
SEO ranking
Cost savings / marketing ROI
Website traffic
Quality of leads
Sales conversions
Number of leads
What metrics does your company currently use to track and measure
the performance of your company’s content marketing campaigns?

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The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 17
Fast Fact
Marketers rate“number of leads”as the number one
metric for tracking and measuring the performance of
their content marketing campaigns. This metric is
closely followed by“number of sales conversions.”

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Related Challenges
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 18
When it comes to lead generation, content is king
• While resource constraints are more likely to be an issue for large and very
large companies than for small and very small companies (72% compared to
86%), companies of all sizes and across nearly all industries struggle almost the
same when it comes to creating compelling content.
• The ability to generate high-quality leads, as well as sufficient numbers of
leads, is almost always a function of having compelling content.
32%
41%
48%
62%
69%
79%
81%
86%
0 20 40 60 80 100
Tracking and measuring results
Budgetary constraints
Managing campaigns effectively
Time constraints
Generating enough leads
Generating high-quality leads
Creating compelling content
Resource constraints
What have been your company’s biggest challenges with content
marketing?

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Notable Disparities
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 19
Industry-wide software providers
produced or licensed nearly twice as
many new content assets over the past
12 months, on average, than non-
software providers (7.5 compared to
3.5 new content assets).
Industries
Compared to sales professionals,
marketing professionals are 18% more
likely to view“raise brand visibility”and
13% more likely to view“demonstrate
thought leadership”as primary
objectives with content marketing.
Roles
Large and very large companies are 3-
times as likely as small and very small
companies (55% compared to 18%) to
use A/B testing and other optimization
tactics to improve the performance of
their content marketing campaigns.
Company Sizes*
*Very small (less than $1 million in revenue);
Small ($1 million to $10 million); Medium ($10
million to $100 million); Large ($100 million to
$1 billion); Very large (more than $1 billion)

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Research Participants
Research for this benchmark report was conducted in Q2 2014. It is based on survey
responses from a range of marketing and sales professionals, many of whom subscribed
to the author’s previous research on marketing, CRM and sales improvement. A total of
261 qualified respondents from North America (71%), Europe (23%) and other parts
of the world (6%) – and from very large (16%), large (21%), medium (18%), small (27%)
and very small (18%) companies – completed the survey, which can be found here.
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 20
CMOs
4% Marketing EVPs,
SVPs or VPs
12%
Sales or business
developmentEVPs,
SVPs or VPs
5%
Marketing or
advertising
directors
12%
Sales or business
development
directors
7%
Marketing or
advertising
directors
16%
Heads of lead
generation
5%
PR /
Communications
directors or
managers
4%
Marketing,
managers,
associates or staff
21%
Other
14%
Software
13%
Business services
4%
Hardware
4%
Construction
2%
Educational / learning
4%
Engineering /
architectural
2%
Financial / accounting
9% Food & beverage
/ restaurant
4%
Government
4%
Healthcare / pharma
5%
Insurance
3%
Manufacturing
5%
Publishing / media
4%
Real
Estate
2%
Wholesale
4%
Telecommunications
3%
Transportation
/ logistics
3%
Travel / hospitality
3%
Other
17%
Titles /corporate
functions
Industries

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Media Partners
DemandCon is an interactive community of knowledgeable marketing and sales
professionals who want to advance their understanding of demand generation, lead
management and sales and marketing alignment.Today we have a database of over
500,000 marketing and sales professionals in the U.S. and Europe.We offer free
webinars, an e-newsletter and in person events.To learn more, please visit
www.demandcon.com.
IMS is the signature summit for marketing and advertising professionals in both B-to-
B and B-to-C markets throughout the U.S. IMS provides actionable insights, expertise
and cutting-edge information in a convenient, affordable two-day educational
format.To learn more, please visit www.integratedmarketingsummit.com.
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 21
BtoB Sales and Marketing is a leading online resource dedicated to the continuing
education and support of B2B sales and marketing professionals in the U.S. and
around the world.To learn more, please visit www.btobsalesandmarketing.com.

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About the Author
Jeff Zabin is founder and CEO of Starfleet Media. He
previously served as CEO and research director at Gleanster, a
leading IT market research firm, and as VP and research fellow
at Aberdeen Group, which is part of Harte-Hanks, a $200M
marketing services company. His bestselling business books
on data-driven marketing improvement have been translated
into more than a dozen languages and he has authored more
than 350 influential research reports and articles over the past
decade. He can be reached at jz@starfleetmedia.com.
Starfleet Media is the leading provider of content marketing programs tailored to
meet the inbound marketing and lead generation needs of B2B companies in
selected niche markets. Participating companies underwrite Smart Decision
Guides™ – compelling, comprehensive and unbiased content assets that help
people make informed buying decisions – allowing them to raise brand awareness,
educate target audiences, increase website traffic, generate qualified leads and
acquire new customers in a cost-effective manner. Our proven demand generation
methodology, extensive partner network, and next-generation SEO infrastructure
ensure that Smart Decision Guides“get found”by the right prospects. To learn
more, please visit www.starfleetmedia,com.
The 2014 Benchmark Report on B2B Content Marketing and Lead Generation – Starfleet Media 22