B2B marketers are spending more, using more tactics, and distributing their content on more social networks than they have in years past, according to the findings of the latest content marketing study from MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute.

But the study found that there is also more uncertainty. B2B marketers are more uncertain whether they are using various content marketing tactics effectively.

The study, called, “B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends–North America,” was sponsored by Brightcove, and conducted via an electronic survey to a sample of B2B marketers that are members and subscribers of MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute. A total of 1,416 from North American companies, representing a full range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes, responded to the August, 2012 survey.

Some highlights from “B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America,” include:

– On average, B2B content marketers are spending 33% of their marketing budgets on content marketing, up from 26% last year; 54% plan to increase content marketing spending next year.
– All content tactics are being used more frequently than they were last year, with the use of research reports, videos, and mobile content having increased the most.
– B2B content marketers are using five social distribution channels; the most popular of those channels is LinkedIn, whereas Twitter had been the most popular the previous two years.

The study also showed that B2B content marketers are most challenged with producing enough content, which is different from previous findings, when the top challenge was producing engaging content.

B2B Content Marketing Tactics

Social media, being used by 87% of B2B content marketers, is now the most popular content marketing tactic, having knocked “articles on your website” out of the top spot.

The use of all tactics has increased across the board, with the exception of print magazines, the use level of which has remained unchanged, at 31%.

B2B Content Marketing Challenges

The biggest B2B content marketing challenge for most marketers (29%) is now “producing enough content,” beating out “producing the kind of content that engages,” which is nevertheless still the biggest challenge for 18% of B2B content marketers.

Lack of budget remains a major issue: It’s the biggest challenge for 14% of B2B content marketers. However, the number of marketers saying it was their biggest challenge decreased 23 percentage points—likely an indication that management is buying into content marketing.

Effectiveness of Tactics

B2B marketers continue to rate in-person events as the most effective tactic (rated very effective or effective), followed by case studies in the No. 2 spot, this year surpassing webinars/webcasts, just as blogs edged out video for the No. 4 spot.

Budgets

More than half of B2B marketers (54%) say they plan to increase content marketing spend in the next 12 months, including 9% who say will do so significantly. Just 2% say they will decrease spend.

View the SlideShare presentation of the 2013 content marketing study here.