Looking to do some B2B marketing? That ad in an industry magazine might have worked five years ago, but chances are, it’s not going to be as effective now – and even less so in five years time.

The Financial Times and Doremus, a business communications agency, recently asked 470 worldwide senior executives about their media and technology habits. The study, Decision Dynamics, has been tracking and polling executive decision makers since 2003 on both their work and leisure media usage. Besides media consumption in the last five years and current usage, these senior executives were also asked to predict how much work-related media they believe they will use in the next five years. Here’s the result:

In essence, in the last five years there’s been a flip between traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) and online media (websites, blogs, mobile media), with usage of online media expected to increase. We personally think the anticipated growth in online media use is conservative (after all, who knows what advancements will be available in five years time? In 2004, did you imagine yourself getting directions on your Android phone, becoming a mayor of your local burger joint via Foursquare or getting your breaking news from Twitter? Probably not.).

Some other factoids that came out of this study include:

• More than half the executives polled said they read blogs, viewed or sent streaming video, and watched webcasts, both for leisure and for work
• Media that was perceived to require a significant investment in time was less popular (while 69% of executives read blogs, only 10% write their own and 31% contribute to blogs)
• Social bookmarking increased from 8% in 2008 to 45% in 2009
• Use of community sites increased from 24% in 2008 to 60% in 2009
• About half the respondents are using mobile to check the news or visit a website

What this means to you and your business:

• If you haven’t already, get a content marketing plan in place and on the go. We have a ton content marketing downloads and online media / content marketing tips that can show you the basics on developing a blog, articles, tip center, webinars and more
• Optimize, optimize, optimize.  Make sure your online presence is easy to find and share. This includes pushing your content to feeders and readers, utilizing SEO to make leaps on Google and tracking what works and what doesn’t. Check out these free SEO tools to get started
• Develop content marketing that is bite size: tighter blog posts, concise articles, Twitter-sized updates are easy to digest for busy decision-makers on the run
• Think mobility: Even if you’re not in a position to create apps, at least make sure your existing content marketing pieces like blogs and web pages are mobile friendly. Test your pages to ensure they come up on smart phones and iPhones clearly, quickly and easily
• Be a joiner. Develop a presence on industry and business online networking sites and make sure your profile is properly filled in. Join, start and contribute to conversations

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under Content Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.