2022 B2B Content Marketing Report: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends

The 12th Annual B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report reveals that B2B marketers are investing more in content marketing due to the impact of COVID-19. 43% of B2B marketers reported an increase in their 2021 content marketing budget compared to 2020, and 66% expect an increase in 2022. Events are a key focus, with over half of B2B marketers expecting to increase investment in in-person, hybrid, and digital events post-vaccine.

The report also found that 55% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing efforts as moderately successful over the past 12 months, while 25% say they were very successful. 50% of B2B marketers outsource some content marketing activities, with large companies more likely to do so. The top content assets that produced the best results were virtual events/ webinars/online courses, research reports, short articles/posts, and ebooks/whitepapers.

The report further identified brand awareness and building credibility/trust as the top goals content marketing has helped B2B marketers achieve. Most companies spend less than half of their total marketing budget on content marketing, and respondents expect changes to SEO/search algorithms to be the most important content-marketing related area in 2021 and 2022.