• by Ray Schultz , May 24, 2017

Email newsletters are one of the top two content distribution tactics used by manufacturers, according to a study by the Content Marketing Institute. And email beats YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook as an element in overall content marketing success. 

This study -- a breakout from an earlier survey of 2,582 B2B marketers -- consists of the findings from 201 respondents who said they work for manufacturing companies.

Of this group, 78% send email newsletters. They are tied for first place with social media content. Next are videos (71%), in-person events (70%), print magazines (57%) and blogs (55%). In addition, email newsletters are deemed critical to marketing success – 43% say so, compared to 44% apiece who cite social media content and video.

Meanwhile, 93% say the same thing about email in general, followed by print (67%), YouTube (64%), LinkedIn (58%), Twitter (39%), Face book (31%) and Google (21%).The survey found that 36% will increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months, and that 48% will maintain their existing budgets. Only 4% indicated a decrease.

As for their goals, 82% plan to focus on brand awareness, 71% on lead generation, 70% on engagement, 62% on sales, 58% on lead nurturing, and 53% on customer retention/loyalty.

On average, manufacturers spend 23% of their marketing budgets on content marketing.

Success is measured in terms of Web site traffic (46%), sales (38%), sales lead quality (31%), higher conversion rates (25%), SEO ranking (25%) and sales lead quality (24%).

However, only 33% have “clarity on their content marketing success,” vs. 34% who don't and 33% who are unsure.