Lower effectiveness of traditional paid ads.

Why are paid ads not working with B2B?

More B2B marketers are shifting budget and priority to earned media as they struggle with declining response rates from traditional investments in paid media. According to a new survey conducted by Demand Gen, nearly half of B2B marketers have increased their earned media spend over the past year.

The best earnt content for B2B are:

• shareworthy content
• optimising the use of social media channels
• Case studies and success stories
• Connecting with key influencers

Earned media If owned media sites are the destination then earned media is the vehicle that helps people get there. What good is a website or social media site if no one is seeing or interacting with it? That's where earned media comes in.

Earned media is essentially online word of mouth, usually seen in the form of 'viral' tendencies, mentions, shares, reposts, reviews, recommendations, or content picked up by 3rd party sites. One of the most effective driving forces of earned media is usually a combined result of strong organic rankings on the Search Engines, and content distributed by the brand.

First page rankings and good content are typically the biggest drivers. Rankings on the first page of the search engines place your owned media sites and content links in a position to receive higher engagement and shares, which is why a good SEO strategy is crucial. When it comes to brand content, interesting, informative content can come in all shapes and sizes. Whether it be a blog, infographic, video, press release, webinar or e-book, the bottom line is that the content has to be worthwhile in order to receive the valuable earned media; which is why a great content strategy is also important.