Wondering if your small business marketing is on the right track?

Not sure if you’re keeping up with the competition?

Get an inside look at where B2B small business marketers are spending their marketing dollars in 2015 to help you get a handle on what will work for your SMB.

Copyblogger sponsored a report by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, three of the leading content marketing organizations, to uncover the B2B Small Business Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends. Here’s what they found, along with some questions to help you drive your B2B marketing this year.

Insight: Website

Small businesses are improving website conversions in 2015. In terms of improving the website experience, the majority of small businesses are spending their marketing dollars to convert website visitors (compared to large business who aren’t spending as much on website conversions). They’re also looking to increase lead generation and create higher-quality content and more visual content.

To Do

Is your business aligned with these goals? When was the last time you overhauled the website to capture more leads and convert visitors?

Insight: Content types

The 2015 Trends report shows an increase in the types of content small businesses are employing to drive their B2B strategies. More small business marketers are turning to social media as their go-to tactic. Social media was the rising star in 2014, used more often than any other tactic. However this year, it has grown to 93 percent of B2B small businesses using it, compared to 88 percent in 2014.

Infographics are also taking over a share of the content marketing landscape, up from 48 percent last year to 60 percent in 2015, and blogs continue to grow is usage, up 10 percent from last year.

To Do

Conduct a review of your marketing campaigns. Are you using the “Big 3”: infographics, blogs and social media?

Insight: Budget

B2B small business marketing budgets continue to increase, with more than half of marketers planning to spend more on content marketing in 2015 than in the previous year. Eight percent plan to significantly increase their budget, while 47 percent plan to increase it. Only 31 percent are keeping their budget the same, 1 percent are decreasing it, while 12 percent remain unsure of plans for 2015.

To Do

Examine your business’ budget for marketing. Are you maintaining the status quo, even though you haven’t seen the results you’d like from the campaigns? Could you invest more in marketing to get a better return?

Insight: The Future

B2B small business marketers continue to struggle with producing engaging content, generating content consistently and finding savvy content marketing professionals. However, they share common goals for the next 12 months: learning more about their audiences, developing a strategic content marketing strategy, creating a subscription model and understanding what works.

To Do

Do your plans for this year align with the most common B2B small business marketing goals? Do you need to better understand your audience to create more strategic content marketing campaigns? How do you measure effectiveness?

Gather your team and evaluate where you stand in terms of B2B content marketing trends for 2015. Following the benchmarks of other marketers can help guide your business’ trajectory from content marketing adoption to content marketing success in 2015.