Content marketing. It’s a relatively new term for something that’s been around for eons, ever since the Ancient Egyptians started 'content marketing' with their hieroglyphs.
Put simply, content marketing is using content to attract and retain an 'audience' so they might eventually convert into a 'customer'.
However, many companies still find it challenging to know exactly what aspects of content marketing they should and shouldn’t include, and where each message 'sits' in the funnel - let alone developing a content strategy.
In this Fact Sheet, we give you the rundown of important content marketing statistics to keep in mind when you are developing your own inbound marketing plan.
Average budget
On average, marketers spend over 25% of their budget on content marketing now, which is a decent chunk.
B2B
The B2B content marketing statistics from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) show 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach customers, and the B2C content marketing stats reveal 86% of B2C marketers think content marketing is a key strategy.
Blogs
Hubspot reports marketers who use blogs to generate traffic are 13 times more likely to generate positive ROIs.
Customised content
78% of consumers will trust your brand if you create more customised content, and 78% of CMOs believe custom content is the future of marketing or so says DemandMetric.
Conversions
Conversion rates are nearly six times higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters at 2.9% vs 0.5%, says Aberdeen.
Direct mail
69% of marketers say content is superior to direct mail and PR.
Effective
According to Demand Metric, content marketing is three times as effective at generating leads than outbound marketing, while costing 62% less.
48% of marketers are making YouTube video a priority, and 46% plan to focus on Facebook video. 74% of people use Facebook for professional purposes, and among Facebook users, 75% visit the site at least once a day.
49% of users say they use Google to discover or find a new item or product. Pages with lots of backlinks rank above pages that don’t have as many backlinks. In fact, the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10.
Headlines
Effective headlines can boost clicks, and therefore page traffic, by as much as 500% says Wired.
Infographics
Infographics, according to OKDork, are the most shared content type. And Forbes says 84% of those using infographics find them effective.
Journey
71% of a B2B respondent pool stated they reviewed a blog while on their buying journey.
Keep interest
71% of buyers say they were turned off by content that seems like a sales pitch.
Landing pages
Companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15, and 68% of businesses use strategic, high-converting landing pages to get their leads to take action, whether that’s signing up to their mailing list, following them on social media, or making a purchase, says Marketo.
Lead generation
82% of B2B marketers consider lead generation to be the top goal of their content marketing efforts, says the Content Marketing Institute. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads says DemandMetric.
Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is an online incentive that marketers offer to prospective clients in exchange for their email addresses or other contact information, says Visme. This can range from an ebook. checklist, white paper or report. 50% of marketers who use lead magnets get higher conversion rates.
Mobile
70% of media time and 79% of social media time happens on mobile devices, and mobile email opens grew 30% in the last year.
Nurture
Only 3% of your market is actively buying. 56% are not ready, 40% are poised to begin.
One per day
60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each day according to eMarketer.
Outsourcing
64% of B2B marketers outsource writing because the marketing won’t be effective if the content is crap.
Podcasts
Podcasting has become an important way to reach your audience. According to Statista, 45% of global internet users aged 25-34 listen to podcasts, almost 1 in 5 Americans listen to audiobooks, and 40% of Americans listen to podcasts. In fact, 15% of Americans listen to a podcast at least once a week and 49% of podcast listening happens at home, with 22% of people listening in the car.
Quality metrics
The top five metrics B2B marketers track to measure content performance are email engagement (90%), website traffic (88%), website engagement (86%) social media analytics (83%), and conversions (78%), says the Content Marketing Institute.
Re-use & repurpose
LookBookHQ reports almost 60% of marketers reuse content two to five times. 51% of companies say updating or repurposing existing content has proven the most effective tactic implemented.
Sales
Through the success of content marketing, 49% of B2B marketers follow up with quality sales leads for further assessment.
SEO
Content is worth optimising because 95% of people only look at the first page of search results.
Strategy
60% of the most effective B2C marketers have a documented content strategy, and 73% of organisations have someone in place to oversee their content strategy - this grows to 86% in highly-effective organisations. But according to the CMI, 63% of businesses don’t have a documented content strategy.
Social media
The most common content marketing delivery mechanism is social media, used by 87% of marketers, says CMI.
Tactics
B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics, says TopRankBlog.
Users
Users love a whitepaper or an ebook. Around 79% of B2B buyers share white papers with colleagues. And ebooks still make great lead magnets. Hubspot’s top lead magnet ebook in 2017 was shared more than 12,000 times.
Video
The Content Marketing Institute reports the majority of B2B marketers, more than 70%, think video content is more effective at converting qualified leads than other types of content. Video is trusted by 40% of millennials and half of those aged 18-34 would stop what they’re doing to watch a new video. Plus, marketers who use video get 66% more leads per year.
Webinars
GoToWebinar says 69% of registrations happen in the last week before the webinar date, plus 33% of all webinar signups occur on the day of the webinar. Not everyone who signs up will actually attend, a third of registrants only ever watch the webinar replay. And BrightTalk says 47% of on-demand views happen 10 days after the webinar.
Website visits
Approximately 96% of website visitors aren’t ready to purchase.
Words
Hubspot says blog post titles with 6-13 words get the most traffic. And Orbit Media suggests the average blog post is 1142 words long.
X-Ray Vision
When asked how they’d most like to learn about a new product, over two-thirds (68%) of consumer said a short video would be best, way ahead of text-based articles (15%), infographics (4%) presentations and pitches (4%) ebooks and manuals (3%).
YOY
Year-over-year growth in unique site traffic is 7.8 times higher for content marketing leaders compared to followers (19.7% vs 2.5%).
Zero (almost)
90% of all organisations use some form of content in their marketing efforts. In an ideal world from a marketing perspective, this number should be zero.
Unleash the power of content marketing. At AZK Media we have a proven track record of scaling content marketing strategy in so many exciting ways. Contact us to find out how we can help.