Know-how Content material Advertising Analysis 2023

Even entrepreneurs at tech firms don’t have an edge in terms of content material administration know-how.

Barely a couple of in 4 (28%) say they’ve the proper tech to handle content material throughout the group. However most haven’t acquired the proper tech (29%) or have the tech however aren’t utilizing its potential (32%). (And 11% aren’t positive about all of it.)

That’s one of many findings in CMI’s newly launched Know-how Content material Advertising Benchmarks, Budgets, and Tendencies: Insights for 2023. Sponsored by Foundry, an IDG, Inc. firm, the survey encompasses responses from 278 tech entrepreneurs in our July 2022 content material advertising and marketing questionnaire.

61% of tech marketers don’t have the right tech or don’t use it to its potential, according to @CMIContent #research via @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

The place tech entrepreneurs plan to speculate

Tech entrepreneurs’ use of tech mirrors B2B entrepreneurs as an entire of their deliberate investments for this yr. Video tops the most well-liked funding, with 84% of know-how entrepreneurs anticipating their group would put money into it this yr. Different most continuously cited investments embrace:

• Occasions 74%
• Owned media belongings 73%
• Paid media 72%
• Earned media 54%
• Social media/neighborhood constructing 54%

Fewer than half anticipated funding in attending to know audiences higher (40%), UX design (27%), audio content material (24%), and content material applied sciences (18%).

Constructing neighborhood is extra vital than ever

Whereas video stays the most well-liked, funding in social media/community-building noticed a giant soar with 54% selecting the class – over 46% greater than the earlier yr. Contemplate these plans with a major curiosity in occasions (74%), and it appears like tech entrepreneurs are prioritizing relationship-building in 2023.

Biggest #ContentMarketing investment leap in 2023 for tech marketers? Social media and community-building, according to @CMIContent #research via @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

“If you give attention to constructing a neighborhood, you’re creating an area the place your viewers feels heard, valued, and understood,” says Lorenzo Mitil, CMI’s social media supervisor. “That sort of surroundings encourages engagement and evokes folks to come back again for extra.”

Demandbase embraces that philosophy. A few yr in the past, it launched a neighborhood referred to as Income Circle for individuals who have vice-president-level roles (or greater) in gross sales and advertising and marketing. The neighborhood hosts unique digital and in-person occasions (alongside different firm occasions). Demandbase Social and Influencer Advertising Director Justin Levy says the massive attract non-public communities like Income Circle is networking alternatives with different members, particularly as layoffs enhance. “The neighborhood turns into its personal universe, with its personal objectives connected which are separate from – however complementary to – these of our group,” Justin says.

Plans for hybrid occasions evolve

Whereas occasions as a content material advertising and marketing device are in style, the specifics for tech entrepreneurs are attention-grabbing. Not surprisingly, over half (57%) count on their group to extend spending on in-person occasions in contrast with the earlier yr. Given the curiosity in digital and hybrid occasions in the course of the prime pandemic years, it’s outstanding that tech entrepreneurs nonetheless plan to speculate extra in digital/digital occasions (26%) and hybrid occasions (27%). Apparently, almost as many (24%) say they gained’t use hybrid occasions in 2023 (solely 3% gained’t use in-person occasions, and 4% gained’t use digital or digital occasions).

“The pandemic proved that the serendipity discovered within the surprising moments at an in-person occasion isn’t replicable elsewhere,” says Nicole Peck, vp and common supervisor of North American occasions at Foundry. “When achieved accurately, occasion participation permits a model to attach with its clients in an genuine manner, offering much-needed, emotionally cast relationships.”

Fewer tech marketers will do hybrid events in 2023, according to @CMIContent #research via @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

What does 2023 maintain?

Neighborhood-building by and for tech entrepreneurs couldn’t come at a greater time.

Information of such widespread layoffs within the tech trade might have prospects and clients questioning about every little thing from service ranges to product roadmaps to the essential survival of your model. (According to Layoffs.fyi, tech firms laid off almost 161,000 staff worldwide in 2022 and almost one other 120,350 between Jan. 1 and March 1, 2023.)

In February, we requested CMI viewers members who work for tech firms how they’re faring. Of the 155 who responded, solely 12% stated that they had been laid off. Nearly half (49%) labored for firms that laid off staff however not them, and 39% stated their firm hadn’t laid off anybody.

For these tech entrepreneurs who witnessed layoffs, about half stated their workloads elevated (generally with out a rise in pay), and one-third stated they haven’t been affected a lot or in any respect as a result of the employees reductions occurred elsewhere within the firm. Of the group that noticed layoffs, 10% p.c stated their groups have pivoted, modified processes, and so on., and a handful have been moved to completely different groups, equivalent to product advertising and marketing.

How safe do these employed really feel about their future with the corporate? Most felt unlikely they might get laid off within the subsequent yr.

Though the pattern dimension for the group who had been laid off was small, almost all had secured one other full-time job or freelance work. Just a few emphasised how troublesome it was, although, given the present aggressive local weather for job seekers. (Should you’ve been laid off, think about the following tips that will help you discover your subsequent alternative.)

Navigating the tech marketer panorama

These outcomes supply solely a glimpse of what tech entrepreneurs advised us. To be taught extra about content material creation, content material advertising and marketing practices, and extra, learn the total report. You’ll additionally discover out what top-performing tech entrepreneurs do in a different way, which might maybe inform your technique for the remainder of 2023.

Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute