The Better Blog

In case you were wondering, you can optimize your B2B marketing budget. In this comprehensive guide, discover how to make the most of a $10,000 monthly spend on content distribution. We’ll look into investment allocation strategies and discuss how to calculate return on investment – while acknowledging that outcomes may vary based on sector and audience. 

One thing’s for sure: content marketers’ spend on online platforms is increasing, per the below chart:

Content Marketing Budget Allocation: Where to Invest

Where should those monthly content distribution dollars go? Let’s take that hypothetical $10,000 budget and put it to work in high-ROI distribution channels:

1. Email newsletters ($2,000): As evidenced in the chart below, email is still the top of the heap for digital content distribution (when done right). Expect to spend approximately 20% of your monthly budget on this highly targeted way to reach potential customers.  The return on investment for an email marketing campaign can be as much as 4400%, or $44 for every $1 spent, according to Campaign Monitor. Using personalization tools can boost effectiveness even further, generating $20 in ROI for every $1 spent, according to an Econsultancy report. 
2. Blogs ($2,500): Another tried-and-true standard, blog posts can deliver serious content marketing ROI, so  $2,500 a month is a reasonable outlay. The majority of consumers (70%) reports preferring to be targeted for advertising via blog posts over traditional ads, according to Ledgeview Partners. What’s more, blogging can get your site more traffic – up to 55% more, as well as 97% more in the way of inbound links and 434% more indexed pages, according to data collected by HubSpot. Good quality will mean more readers and better engagement – so consider using this slightly higher monthly spend of $2,500 to engage the services of a professional writer or SEO tools. 
3. Webinars: ($2,000): Consider spending another 20% of your monthly B2B marketing budget on producing and disseminating webinars. While these live online presentations or seminars can take considerable time to create, they’re well worth it. Why? They work. Some 95% of respondents in a recent survey by webinar-software firm ON24 Inc., while the same percentage said webinars are an integral component of their online marketing work. With a $2,000 monthly budget, you could hire a compelling guest speaker or spend more on production or promotion.
4. Case studies: Set aside an additional $2,000 a month to develop, polish and circulate interesting case studies that show your company’s value. You’ll be in good company when you do, as 73% of B2B marketers say that case studies–those detailed written accounts of business success–are one of their most useful marketing tactics, according to the Content Marketing Institute. Case studies can often sway prospects regarding B2B purchases–and put them firmly in the customer category. Some 78% of B2B buyers said case studies were valuable to them as they determined whether to buy a product, according to Demand Gen Report. For $2,000 a month, you could produce multiple high-quality case studies, and even think about having them feature professional design or video.
5. Video shorts ($1,500): Part of your monthly content marketing spend should go toward creating video shorts, quickly becoming a crucial part of B2B marketing. Ninety-six percent of people say they have watched a video to learn more about a service or product, according to Wyzowl. These brief pieces can be highly successful in distilling down complicated topics to educate an audience. They can also be deployed on numerous channels, from your website to social media platforms. 

How to Calculate Content ROI by Channel

Of course, you’ll want to know what you’re getting from that monthly B2B budget. Here’s how to measure your ROI for each of the categories:

• Email: The email marketing platform you use for your newsletters should track several metrics that you can use to determine effectiveness. Those to pay particular attention to include: email open rate (the average across industries is about 21.33%, according to Mailchimp); click-through rate, or the percentage of users who clicked on at least one link in the email (the trans-sector average is 2.62%, also according to Mailchimp); conversion rate, the percentage of recipients who did the requested task, such as purchasing an item (average rate: 3%, per Mailchimp) and the number of new customers or leads. In calculating ROI from email newsletter campaigns, remember to factor in your spend on the email marketing software and your time spent managing the campaign.
• Blogs: To figure out what you’re getting out of your blog posts, tally up your spend on writing (the fees of your freelancer, if you’re using one, or your per-hour rate, if you’re doing the writing), as well as time spent editing and promoting the pieces. Look at the posts’ page views and the average time spent on each article (the average is just 37 seconds, according to TechJury, so make those pieces interesting and concise). Look, too, at the number of shares your posts get on social media, their conversion rate and the SEO rank for your keywords.
• Webinars: Your webinar costs can include platform subscription payments, your own hourly rate in making and circulating the videos, fees to guest presenters and speakers and more. Keep track of the number of attendees at each webinar, as well as during-event participation such as chats and polls, post-event online conversation and, of course, any new leads you get from the webinars. (Successful webinars yield an average lead rate of approximately 19%, according to Apexure.)
• Case studies: How useful are case studies for your business’s bottom line? Measure their effect on sales and site traffic, what customers say about your products or services, and buyer purchasing patterns. What is the difference in conversion rates between leads that saw the case studies and those that did not? Determine your ROI from case-study creation by comparing your financial investment against the amount the case studies generated (or the amount your company saved from creating those documents). According to his blog, these can be more powerful than you might think; one well-known web influencer reports using case studies to increase his deal-closing ratio by some 70%.
• Video shorts: Follow the number of views your short videos get and the amount and type of engagement you see from them. Click-through and conversion rates will also give you a good idea of the bang you’re getting for your buck. Add up the total investment you made in developing and promoting the video shorts–your time, any software or equipment purchases you made, and any professional services you retained–and compare it with the amount of money you made or saved by deploying the videos. For the ROI, divide your net profit by what you spent to make the videos, then multiply that number by 100.

If time is money, consider this data point: the average web user spends 88% more time on a site that features video than on one that has none, according to Oneupweb. 

What Is the Average ROI for Popular Content Distribution Channels?

We’re seeing that there’s a bit of a drop-off when it comes to PPC and paid social ads. While these are still important forms of advertising, they still don’t carry quite the same ROI as less expensive and organic content channels focusing on email, web content, and search engine optimization. 

That being said, there’s more media-specific data that can place this information in context:

1. Email newsletters: Email newsletters have a reputation for yielding significant value, and it’s well earned. With a $2,000 monthly budget for them, you could see an ROI of as much as $36 for every $1 you spend, according to Constant Contact.
2. Blogs: The return you get on creating and posting blog pieces can be more difficult to ascertain, as they frequently work with other marketing tactics, such as social media, email marketing and SEO. But with more than 75% of web users reading blogs and almost 90% of content marketers using them as part of their larger strategy, according to Marketing Insider Group, it’s a good bet that well-written blog posts will pay off for your business. And consider this: companies with blogs see their monthly leads increase by 126% more than businesses without them, according to Hubspot.
3. Webinars: Well-produced, interesting online tutorials and seminars have a high probability of getting you more sales. Seventy-three percent of B2B webinar attendees turn into real leads, according to WebinarCare. This means that from a webinar that garnered 250 viewers, 182 of them will become leads. While the mean B2B lead-to-sale conversion rate varies between industries, a cross-sector average is about 12%, according to Demand Science. From your 182 leads, then, an average of nearly 22 will become sales.
   
4. Case studies: These accounts of past business success delivered for clients can close deals. Assuming a $1,500 spend on a case study, if it helps close a single $5,000 sale each month, you’ve gotten an ROI of 233%, according to Demand Science. And 73% of B2B buyers say they look to case studies before making a purchase, according to the Content Marketing Institute.
5. Video shorts: Short video content can bolster your sales. Eighty-eight percent of consumers said they decided to buy a product after watching a video about it, according to Wyzowl. Video marketers get 66% more in the way of qualified leads than marketers that do not use video, according to Optinmonster. So if you spend $1,500 to produce a short video and get ten additional sales of $1,000 each, you’ve turned an ROI of $10,000, or 567%.

Partner with Media Shower for Better Content Marketing

You can be successful using the content marketing strategies we’ve given you – but why go it alone when you don’t have to? At Media Shower, we’re passionate about helping brands grow through high-quality content creation.

We’ll get you: 

• Better pricing
• Better content
• Better ROI

Contact us today to try out the Media Shower platform today.