Content creation is one of the key elements of marketing strategies nowadays. If implemented successfully, content marketing can grow leads, boost the interest of consumers, and increase the retention rate. That’s what makes this tool so powerful and omnipresent.
But it’s not always easy to develop a productive strategy. As the matter of fact, many businesses are struggling to find the right balance between marketing investments, multichannel promotion, and content creation. This leaves their content marketing plans underdeveloped or inefficient, which is why we often witness some very unusual statistics in this field. That’s exactly why we decided to present you 9 statistics about content marketing that will really make you reconsider your plans and future moves.
Source: Red Website Design.
First of all, the evolution of information technologies is so fast that new trends and developments occur almost on a daily basis. In such environment, marketers come up with various promotion models and constantly adapt to current conditions. At the same time, they invest time and effort in order to predict the next big thing.
Secondly, almost half of the world population has Internet access and there is no better market than digital to present your ideas to the wider audience. This makes marketers very creative while trying to increase their companies’ market shares, which eventually created conditions for the development of content marketing.
The last but not the least, content marketing became possible because Internet users didn’t trust direct advertising anymore. Namely, potential consumers don’t want to see a traditional type of marketing where companies brag about their products and expect you to believe their words. Instead, customers of today want to know more about the products or services they buy. They want to hear concrete statistical data, expert opinions, and testimonials. So content marketing indulges buyers and allows them to take control over consumer journey.
As much as 55% of these teams are small or one-person organizations, while in only 5% of situations each brand or product line has its own content marketing team as a backup. Needless to say, this sounds strange and counterintuitive. It’s almost like allowing your kid to control the family budget. No matter how smart or well-experienced this person or a group of only a few people may be, it’s pretty much impossible to expect them to make serious and long-term content marketing strategies, implement actions on a daily basis, and constantly generate creative contents.
Content creation simply became too big a deal to leave it up to the small group of marketing professionals. Of course, it’s reasonable to guess that the largest corporations invest much more in their marketing teams but this logic needs to apply to small or medium sized companies as well. Only entrepreneurs who exclusively work within local communities can afford themselves the privilege of underdeveloped content marketing strategy. But even for them, this is not the good plan in the long term.
What’s the reason for such devastating results? Obviously, a lot of companies – even their marketing teams - are not actually familiar with this entire concept. It proves that marketing is not only a necessary business element: it is also a living organism which demands constant attention and continuous learning. That’s why marketing staff needs support from the specialized content creators.
Additionally, you can often find the reason for poor implementation within the very strategy. Many marketers write content strategies only to fulfill this requirement but don’t exactly know what they are doing. Such strategies can simply be impossible to realize or even good but not appropriate for the specific company.
Sometimes there’s the problem of slow reaction - companies are not able to determine the latest trends in the industry and always move one step behind their competitors. In order to avoid this problem, it’s crucial to follow industry developments and stay up to date. Luckily enough, there are some very useful solutions in that regard. Online tools such as Google Trends can give you an overview of the most popular searches, hot topics, and industry news.
The question is – how come you do something that you have no clue about? Content marketing, which draws much of its power from social media, can be very difficult to analyze. It’s easy to determine how much you invest but it’s not so clear how much you gain from it. But if you are not able to estimate your ROI, you should not enter the game.
The way to achieve this is simple: you need to set the expected goals and results. These can vary significantly but the most common method is to determine your goals as concrete actions taken by the online followers. This type of target comes in the form of direct purchases, downloads, email leads, trials, etc. Tracking objectives comes next and the most notable tool in that regard is Google Analytics. This tool will make you set precise targets and it’s up to you to determine which ones suit your campaign the most.
Our article is not about the social media analytics and its technicalities, so we won’t explain it thoroughly. But rest assured that Google Analytics and other similar tools are easy to use and give you very definite data about the campaign. Using this approach, you won’t end up surprised or confused about the content marketing investment you just made.
It’s the so-called influencer marketing that amplifies your content. B2B buyers take their actions seriously and want to be sure that content creation is coming from the key opinion leaders. They don’t need to be senior managers or sales executives. They can also be well-experienced marketing specialists or niche experts. But it’s important that their resumes make them reliable in the eyes of the customers.
Employee participation can sometimes be a very interesting solution for content creation, too. Your employees are usually credible insiders with many concrete examples of interesting activities, which actually makes them perfect brand ambassadors. Their testimonials and personalized stories improve brand image and contribute to company perception among buyers.
The idea behind this principle of content marketing is not only to show people that you can offer them the best products or services. It is also important to provide them with the in-depth understanding of trending topics. Such authenticity is what sets you apart from competitors. Use whatever works for your audience: manuals, expert guides, “how to” articles, reviews, or podcasts. All of these contents can add value to your company, brand, and personnel.
And the trend doesn’t change only for typical blogs. Shorter posts are down by 50% in the last two years, while the 2000+ word blogs are getting more popular each year. Given the fact that the average person doesn’t really read that much, it’s still unusual to see blogs going up like that. However, this is the consequence of the above-mentioned need for more in-depth content.
Additionally, bloggers post articles less frequently. Of course, they cannot keep the same level of productivity while writing much longer posts. That’s why they usually don’t make articles on a daily basis. Instead, weekly or even monthly posts are the most frequent. It looks like a good idea at first but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.
The main issue here is to find the perfect balance between the size and quality of your blogs on one hand, and the frequency of posts on the other. Yes, it’s always the best to publish high-quality blog posts but it’s no use if you do it once a month. The ideal situation would be to post a great blog each day but it’s close to impossible. In a situation like this, marketers can find the solution in the help of professional writers. Outsourcing this task to essays service gives you the chance to plan topics, make a schedule, post articles each day, and still rest assured that it’s a high-quality content.
Videos also allow you promotions through all types of devices because they are universal and well-integrated into different software solutions. This enables video content to spread through all channels and perhaps even go viral is some occasions.
Okay, we knew that the mobile industry is a big deal but we couldn’t guess that it was going to take over almost two-thirds of the advertising market. Rough estimations suggest that this portion of the market will be worth more than $215 billion in five years. But behind all these numbers, there is one important element. Marketers actually don’t follow trends in the mobile industry.
They follow social network users instead. And since the vast majority of Facebook or Twitter users own mobile devices, mobile advertising becomes an enormous side effect. Therefore, the biggest challenge for marketers nowadays is to optimize their web pages to completely fit mobile experience. Mobile apps demand full integration, user-friendly design, and localization. Once this is completed, companies can expect even larger benefits from mobile advertising.
It is surprising – or at least until you look back and recall that it’s the visualization that plays a key role in contemporary content marketing. Two features make infographics so good: their potential to inform you and the ability to amuse you. However, this suggests that you need a reliable source of information and statistics to be able to design a great infographic.
Once again it’s all about finding the right balance. You need correct data paired with a good-looking design. And if you are not able to find new information, try to analyze older statistical measurements from a different point of view. It’s always good to catch the observer with a few fresh alternatives to the standardized analysis.
When designed professionally, infographics have an enormous potential to go viral. These days, everybody needs a good visual presentation of a large amount of data. If you manage to put it all together and make it visually attractive, you’ll have an excellent chance to make a breakthrough. That’s the power of high-quality infographics.
Conclusion
There is this widely spread notion that content marketing is the business savior per se. It is true that this type of marketing can bring substantial benefits to the teams which know how to plan and realize their strategies. But it’s not so simple for the majority of companies that don’t have such highly-skilled marketing crews.
Some of these 9 statistics are inspiring, while some of them are quite sobering. And they are all here to remind you that content marketing cannot bring benefits on its own. It depends on your skills, analysis, and expertise, so don’t waste the chance to make it a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.
About Author:
But it’s not always easy to develop a productive strategy. As the matter of fact, many businesses are struggling to find the right balance between marketing investments, multichannel promotion, and content creation. This leaves their content marketing plans underdeveloped or inefficient, which is why we often witness some very unusual statistics in this field. That’s exactly why we decided to present you 9 statistics about content marketing that will really make you reconsider your plans and future moves.
All you didn’t know about content creation
You must’ve heard of that famous saying that suggests “statistics are like bikinis - what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” However, it’s not always the case. Some statistics can really lead us to refreshing conclusions and redefine our way of thinking. Let’s see 9 such statistics here!Everybody does content creation
Although it’s a relatively new thing, content creation is almost everywhere. Recent surveys revealed that 9 of 10 B2B marketers use content marketing in their business strategies. It’s surprising to see how incredibly fast this tool found the place in the world of latent advertising. But what is the logic behind this case?First of all, the evolution of information technologies is so fast that new trends and developments occur almost on a daily basis. In such environment, marketers come up with various promotion models and constantly adapt to current conditions. At the same time, they invest time and effort in order to predict the next big thing.
Secondly, almost half of the world population has Internet access and there is no better market than digital to present your ideas to the wider audience. This makes marketers very creative while trying to increase their companies’ market shares, which eventually created conditions for the development of content marketing.
The last but not the least, content marketing became possible because Internet users didn’t trust direct advertising anymore. Namely, potential consumers don’t want to see a traditional type of marketing where companies brag about their products and expect you to believe their words. Instead, customers of today want to know more about the products or services they buy. They want to hear concrete statistical data, expert opinions, and testimonials. So content marketing indulges buyers and allows them to take control over consumer journey.
Companies don’t invest enough in content marketing teams
Content marketing will be a $300 billion industry by 2019. Being such a big deal, this could lead you to the reckless conclusion that companies invest huge amounts of money in their marketing teams. But the surprising fact here is that B2B content marketing organizational structure is basically a one-man show in more than half of all cases.As much as 55% of these teams are small or one-person organizations, while in only 5% of situations each brand or product line has its own content marketing team as a backup. Needless to say, this sounds strange and counterintuitive. It’s almost like allowing your kid to control the family budget. No matter how smart or well-experienced this person or a group of only a few people may be, it’s pretty much impossible to expect them to make serious and long-term content marketing strategies, implement actions on a daily basis, and constantly generate creative contents.
Content creation simply became too big a deal to leave it up to the small group of marketing professionals. Of course, it’s reasonable to guess that the largest corporations invest much more in their marketing teams but this logic needs to apply to small or medium sized companies as well. Only entrepreneurs who exclusively work within local communities can afford themselves the privilege of underdeveloped content marketing strategy. But even for them, this is not the good plan in the long term.
Results are not that good at all
It seems like only 22% of B2B marketers are extremely or very successful in implementing their content marketing strategies. If we take the previous bulletin into calculation, this may not sound so awkward after all. But still - only a little more than 20% is terrible indeed.
What’s the reason for such devastating results? Obviously, a lot of companies – even their marketing teams - are not actually familiar with this entire concept. It proves that marketing is not only a necessary business element: it is also a living organism which demands constant attention and continuous learning. That’s why marketing staff needs support from the specialized content creators.
Additionally, you can often find the reason for poor implementation within the very strategy. Many marketers write content strategies only to fulfill this requirement but don’t exactly know what they are doing. Such strategies can simply be impossible to realize or even good but not appropriate for the specific company.
Sometimes there’s the problem of slow reaction - companies are not able to determine the latest trends in the industry and always move one step behind their competitors. In order to avoid this problem, it’s crucial to follow industry developments and stay up to date. Luckily enough, there are some very useful solutions in that regard. Online tools such as Google Trends can give you an overview of the most popular searches, hot topics, and industry news.
How to measure ROI?
Marketing supports sales, that is the law. Companies accumulate certain funds specifically to develop their content marketing strategies but expect great results and financial benefits from it. However, surveys have proved that 6 in 10 small businesses are not able to track return on investments (ROI) from their social media activities.The question is – how come you do something that you have no clue about? Content marketing, which draws much of its power from social media, can be very difficult to analyze. It’s easy to determine how much you invest but it’s not so clear how much you gain from it. But if you are not able to estimate your ROI, you should not enter the game.
The way to achieve this is simple: you need to set the expected goals and results. These can vary significantly but the most common method is to determine your goals as concrete actions taken by the online followers. This type of target comes in the form of direct purchases, downloads, email leads, trials, etc. Tracking objectives comes next and the most notable tool in that regard is Google Analytics. This tool will make you set precise targets and it’s up to you to determine which ones suit your campaign the most.
Our article is not about the social media analytics and its technicalities, so we won’t explain it thoroughly. But rest assured that Google Analytics and other similar tools are easy to use and give you very definite data about the campaign. Using this approach, you won’t end up surprised or confused about the content marketing investment you just made.
Buyers want highly professional content
Content marketing relies on credibility. It’s always important to let the customers know that they are looking at expert content from trustworthy sources. But it’s still very surprising to realize that as much as 96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders.It’s the so-called influencer marketing that amplifies your content. B2B buyers take their actions seriously and want to be sure that content creation is coming from the key opinion leaders. They don’t need to be senior managers or sales executives. They can also be well-experienced marketing specialists or niche experts. But it’s important that their resumes make them reliable in the eyes of the customers.
Employee participation can sometimes be a very interesting solution for content creation, too. Your employees are usually credible insiders with many concrete examples of interesting activities, which actually makes them perfect brand ambassadors. Their testimonials and personalized stories improve brand image and contribute to company perception among buyers.
The idea behind this principle of content marketing is not only to show people that you can offer them the best products or services. It is also important to provide them with the in-depth understanding of trending topics. Such authenticity is what sets you apart from competitors. Use whatever works for your audience: manuals, expert guides, “how to” articles, reviews, or podcasts. All of these contents can add value to your company, brand, and personnel.
Blogs are getting much longer
A logical addition to the previous statement is that content blogs are getting much longer. However, it’s still interesting to see that the average blog has increased by almost 20% last year and it doesn’t seem like this trend is going to stop. Today, the median size of the blog is approximately 1,050 words.And the trend doesn’t change only for typical blogs. Shorter posts are down by 50% in the last two years, while the 2000+ word blogs are getting more popular each year. Given the fact that the average person doesn’t really read that much, it’s still unusual to see blogs going up like that. However, this is the consequence of the above-mentioned need for more in-depth content.
Additionally, bloggers post articles less frequently. Of course, they cannot keep the same level of productivity while writing much longer posts. That’s why they usually don’t make articles on a daily basis. Instead, weekly or even monthly posts are the most frequent. It looks like a good idea at first but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.
The main issue here is to find the perfect balance between the size and quality of your blogs on one hand, and the frequency of posts on the other. Yes, it’s always the best to publish high-quality blog posts but it’s no use if you do it once a month. The ideal situation would be to post a great blog each day but it’s close to impossible. In a situation like this, marketers can find the solution in the help of professional writers. Outsourcing this task to essays service gives you the chance to plan topics, make a schedule, post articles each day, and still rest assured that it’s a high-quality content.
Video is taking over control
We said enough about the reading and the blogs. Now, it is time to emphasize that video contents will make almost 80% of Internet traffic in 2018. There are so many things that caused this new trend and we’ll name but a few:- 9 of 10 consumers claim that product videos help them make the decision to buy
- YouTube video consumption is doubling each year
- The vast majority of marketers integrate video content into their overall strategies
- Video recordings in emails significantly improve click-through rates
Videos also allow you promotions through all types of devices because they are universal and well-integrated into different software solutions. This enables video content to spread through all channels and perhaps even go viral is some occasions.
Mobile advertising is the next big deal
IT brought us computers, tablets, and other useful gadgets but mobile phones gained supremacy in the last decade. Today, there are more than 4.75 billion mobile phone users in the world. It’s hard to imagine how big this market actually is. With this huge number of smartphones worldwide, it is no wonder that mobile will account for 72% of US digital ad spend by 2019.Okay, we knew that the mobile industry is a big deal but we couldn’t guess that it was going to take over almost two-thirds of the advertising market. Rough estimations suggest that this portion of the market will be worth more than $215 billion in five years. But behind all these numbers, there is one important element. Marketers actually don’t follow trends in the mobile industry.
They follow social network users instead. And since the vast majority of Facebook or Twitter users own mobile devices, mobile advertising becomes an enormous side effect. Therefore, the biggest challenge for marketers nowadays is to optimize their web pages to completely fit mobile experience. Mobile apps demand full integration, user-friendly design, and localization. Once this is completed, companies can expect even larger benefits from mobile advertising.
Infographics are a must
Online customers don’t want traditional marketing methods anymore. Direct advertising is obsolete and so is statistics. Users switched to video, blogging, mobile experience, and infographics. In just over 2 years, infographic search volumes have increased by more than 800%. Well, isn’t it surprising?It is surprising – or at least until you look back and recall that it’s the visualization that plays a key role in contemporary content marketing. Two features make infographics so good: their potential to inform you and the ability to amuse you. However, this suggests that you need a reliable source of information and statistics to be able to design a great infographic.
Once again it’s all about finding the right balance. You need correct data paired with a good-looking design. And if you are not able to find new information, try to analyze older statistical measurements from a different point of view. It’s always good to catch the observer with a few fresh alternatives to the standardized analysis.
When designed professionally, infographics have an enormous potential to go viral. These days, everybody needs a good visual presentation of a large amount of data. If you manage to put it all together and make it visually attractive, you’ll have an excellent chance to make a breakthrough. That’s the power of high-quality infographics.
Conclusion
There is this widely spread notion that content marketing is the business savior per se. It is true that this type of marketing can bring substantial benefits to the teams which know how to plan and realize their strategies. But it’s not so simple for the majority of companies that don’t have such highly-skilled marketing crews.
Some of these 9 statistics are inspiring, while some of them are quite sobering. And they are all here to remind you that content marketing cannot bring benefits on its own. It depends on your skills, analysis, and expertise, so don’t waste the chance to make it a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.
About Author:
Laura Buckler is content creator at essays service and marketing content specialist with almost 5 years of experience in social media advertising. Content creation in social networking took most of her working hours but now she focuses more on writing extensive posts about marketing strategies.
