If you're reading any advice about running an online business, chances are "content marketing" is mentioned somehow. It's a popular strategy of creating, publishing and promoting content to engage an audience with helpful, relevant information and influence them over time.
Since consumers need to see content multiple times to convert, however, the investment (money and time) that goes into keeping content fresh, interesting and suitable for the different channels can be hefty. Not all organizations are equipped for full-scale content marketing campaigns, because there is a needed commitment to employ and manage freelance or in-house creative-type professionals who can plan and execute the creation of blogs, infographics, videos, social posts, native ads and other media types.
Regardless of where your company is within its content marketing maturity, let the following stats help you make smarter decisions, help your efforts evolve further, help you look critically at your initiatives and/or help you sell the idea of content marketing to stakeholders.
1. Forty-four percent of B2B marketers meet daily or weekly-either in person or virtually-to discuss the progress of their content marketing program; however, the more effective the organization is at content marketing, the more often they meet (61 percent of the most effective meet daily or weekly).
2. Fewer B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy compared with last year (32 percent versus 35 percent), even though the research consistently shows that those who document their strategy are more effective in nearly all areas of content marketing.
3. Over the last six years, B2B marketers have consistently cited website traffic as their most often used metric. This year, however, they were also asked to rate metrics by importance. What was found, is that the most important metrics are sales lead quality (87 percent), sales (84 percent) and higher conversion rates (82 percent).
(Source for 1-3)
4. The number of online customer interactions that happen before conversion vary by industry, ranging from 2.4 for B2B sites to 7.3 for fashion retailers. The takeaway here could be that the more times brands put quality content (information that makes sense in the moment) in front of consumers, the better since they need to interact with the brand so frequently in order to buy. If the B2B number (2.4) seems low, it's likely because the buyer has researched the product/service on other indirect channels before actual interaction with the brand.
(Source)
5. Seventy-five percent of companies are increasing content marketing investment, with 43 percent increasing staff levels.
6. Top challenges reported for content marketing are:
a. Limited budget (including staff)
b. Creating enough content on a regular basis
c. Finding the best sources to create amazing content
d. Measuring the impact of content
e. Organizational culture
f. Promoting content
7. Forty-two percent of companies have an executive responsible for content marketing.
8. Sixty-eight percent of companies with a content marketing team staff three or fewer people.
9. Nearly half (42.5 percent) of companies report they are increasing content marketing staff levels this year.
10. Thirty-seven percent of content marketers never complete a content audit.
11. Twenty-nine percent of leading marketers systematically reuse and repurpose content.
12. Forty-eight percent of companies are not curating content.
13. Forty percent of companies have either "moderately" or "fully" integrated their marketing and sales force automation systems.
14. The median average time spent with an article published in Q1 2016 was 37 seconds.
15. A large percentage (74 percent) use visual assets in their social media marketing, up from 71 percent in 2015. Close behind were blogging (68 percent) and video (60 percent).
16. B2B marketers are much more likely to use blogging (78 percent) when compared to B2C marketers (6 percent).
17. When marketers were given only one choice, blogging was picked as the single most important form of content for their business (38 percent). This is a significant drop from 45 percent in 2015. Visual marketing was close behind (37 percent).
18. The use of video is a key part of most marketers' plans in 2016, with 73 percent planning on increasing their use of videos.
19. Creating videos took first place as the area marketers most want to learn about (66 percent), followed by blogging (65 percent) and creating visuals (65 percent).
20. Twenty-eight percent of bloggers don't republish content outside of their blog.
(Source for 15-20)
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