70% of B2B Marketers to Increase DemandGen Budget in 2018

As B2B marketers look ahead to the remainder of 2018, new research suggests that they are shifting their focus to demand generation.

Recently, DemandGen Report conducted its “2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report” to gauge how B2B marketers intend to utilize their budget over the coming months. Approximately 70 percent of respondents said that they expect their demand gen budgets to grow this year. Thirty-six percent claimed that they predict that it will increase by up to 10 percent. On the higher end of the spectrum, 12 percent see it increasing by more than 30 percent.

B2B marketers also have priorities in terms of their demand generation initiatives. For instance, 73 percent are focused on lead quality over quantity. Seventy-two percent would like to improve their conversion rates, while 62 percent want to generate increased lead volume.

In terms of achieving their goals, certain channels and tactics have been more effective than others. For instance, email was essential for driving early-stage engagement (59 percent) and conversions later in the funnel (81 percent). Website (51 percent), search (56 percent) and social (44 percent) were also essential for early-stage engagement.

Content Marketing as a 2018 Priority

While demand generation remains a top priority for B2B marketers, recent research suggests that it’s content marketing that most marketers are focused on in general heading into the rest of the year.

SmallBizTrends conducted a survey to determine the top objectives among marketers, and it found that content marketing (20 percent) was most popular among respondents. This was followed by big data (14 percent) and artificial intelligence (14 percent).

“Content is King and it’s no surprise to see content marketing at the top of the pile,” says Tom Demers, co-founder and managing partner with Measured SEM and Cornerstone Content. “Content marketing is the fuel that powers all digital communications from search to social to email marketing to creating website experiences which convert.”