We all spend more and more time on our laptops, tablets and phone searching for information, interacting with our social media apps and generally consuming content. Content is essential for your customers and potential customers to learn about your brand, values, capabilities, products, and services.
As such, it is important to understand content marketing trends and stats so that your own strategies and tactics are well informed, and you are targeting the audiences with the right content and so you can learn from your own experiences to determine which approaches work best for your business.
Strategy Context
- The top three content marketing tactics are blogging (67%), social media (73%), and case studies (82%)
- 77% of companies say they have a content marketing strategy. (SEMrush, 2019) 94% of marketers use social media for content distribution. (SEMrush, 2019)
- Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising and it costs 62% less than traditional marketing
- Only 30% of marketers say their content strategy is effective
- 65% of B2B marketers say they have a difficult time coming up with content that will engage their audience
- The most sophisticated B2B marketers allocate 82% to creating content
- 65% of B2B marketers say they have a difficult time coming up with content that will engage their audience
- 61% of marketers say their biggest content challenge is driving traffic and generating leads
- The most sophisticated B2B marketers allocate 82% of their budgets for creating content
Visual, Interactive and Video Content
- Video has become the most used format in content marketing, overtaking blogs and infographics. (HubSpot, 2020)
- B2C marketers use live video at a rate of 66% compared to B2B marketers at 24%
- 35% of marketers report that creating engaging visual content consistently is one of their top struggles
- 75% of Americans age 12+ (approximately 212 million people) are now familiar with podcasting. (Edison Research, 2020)
- Promotional videos and brand storytelling are the most common video types created by marketers. (HubSpot, 2020)
- 87% of video marketers say that video has increased traffic to their website. (Wyzowl, 2020)
- 80% of video marketers claim that video has directly increased sales. (Wyzowl, 2020)
- 45% of marketers rate their interactive content as either extremely or very effective. Interactive content includes assessments, calculators, quizzes, or contests
Blogging
- 60% of marketers create at least one blog or content piece per day
- B2B marketers are convinced blogging is their most important type of content(43%) while B2C marketers are convinced visual content is more important (45%)
- Guest or non-paid contributor posts accounted for 57% of outsourced business blogs.
Social Media
- When it comes to delivering content and securing audience engagement, LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform at 82%. Twitter took second place at 66%
- Unsurprisingly, B2B companies utilize LinkedIn 94% of the time and Twitter at 87% of the time
- Visual assets are the single biggest content contributor when it comes to social media (87%) in 2019
Buyer Journey
- 82% of buyers viewed at least five pieces of content from the vendor prior to purchase
- 76% of buyers are willing to share their information in exchange for white papers. Ebooks took second place with 63% willing to share their info
- Audience relevance is number one when it comes to content effectiveness at 58%, but compelling storytelling takes a solid second place at 57%
- 63% of marketers are creating content with buyer persona in mind
Organisation
- 42% of companies have a designated content strategist executive to ensure all content is meeting branding expectations and being released at the right time
- 71% of businesses have a team that will ensure proper blogging conduct, audience reaction, etc
- Despite this, 70% of organisations can’t seem to reliably integrate their content correctly to maximize sales
- 25% of marketers do not outsource their content creation. 45% of content creation is done on an ad-hoc basis