April 25, 2021
3 key learnings for B2C and DTC marketing in 2021

For the past 11 years, the Content Marketing Institute has done research and published an annual report analyzing trends in the B2B and B2C marketing space. They generally talk to content marketers working for companies, but the learnings they share can be applied by any marketer or entrepreneur building a B2C or DTC business.

Content marketing is the term used to group all marketing activities and strategies that focus on creating and sharing online content. This can include blog posts, email newsletters, social media, etc., and most content marketing is meant to pull in a customer and get them interested about a product or brand.

There’s a lot of information to digest in their report, so I’ve summarized three of the key findings and takeaways here to save you some time:

To build effective content, you need a strategy

More and more marketers are becoming strategic about their content. 73% of survey respondents say their company has a content marketing strategy, and almost half have their strategy documented in some way. In addition, almost 60% of respondents said they are in early stages of developing or testing their content marketing to figure out what works. Many also made changes to strategy in response to the pandemic. 

When it comes to strategy, analysis is also important and 85% of respondents shared that they were using some sort of analytics tool to measure effectiveness, too.

Content formats are changing, slowly

While the most popular content marketing format remains blog posts and articles (hello, reader!), livestreamed videos are picking up in popularity. Livestreaming video usage almost tripled amongst B2C content marketers year over year. They have not proven to be the most effective forms of content though, since surveyed marketers said blog posts and email newsletters still provided their top content marketing results. 

In-person events saw a decrease from 50% to 37% year over year, while online events picked up momentum. Previously, 27% of marketers were using online events, and that number jumped to 39%. 

Half of B2C marketers say their companies have built online communities

Communities are powerful marketing and selling tools, as they create a space for customers (and potential customers) to engage. 48% of respondents said their organization has already built an online community, while 31% of those who have not built one said they are likely to build one in the next year. 

To read the full report, click here.

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