9 Stats That Will Make You Want To Invest In Content Marketing

In this competitive B2B marketing landscape, businesses have been turning towards building out extensive content marketing programs as the solution. But, still some marketers struggle to prove it’s value to their companies decision makers. We’ve got your back and have put together 9 stats that will make anyone want to invest in content marketing.

Most people know that content marketing is one of the most powerful tools available today. Digital marketing agencies help create some of the best content strategies for successful market penetration. They help increase web traffic, improve the brand name, and gain audience recognition. Marketers also know how to analyze and track audience engagement, likes, and shares across various digital and social media platforms. 

While all this sounds fabulous, you should also know that it is essential to track each metric separately. Monitoring and analyzing with correct statistical data helps rework strategies and plan the operational aspects of running a content marketing campaign. Since content helps change the brand perception of the audience, it is critical that as a marketer, you can steer the path exactly how the client wants it. 

Understanding the data, analyzing it, and making changes help with the strategic planning bit of the marketing process. You will also get a better understanding of which kind of content your audience prefers. Understanding different audiences and making content valuable and relevant will always result in better conversion rates and help improve the brands’ voice and reputation. 

When there is no research available to help understand content marketing, it can become time-consuming to find it yourself. However, for content marketers, understanding the statistics and effectively working on the findings can be game-changers.

What Is The Main Purpose Of Content Marketing?

Content marketing helps in the creation and sharing of relevant, valuable, downloadable written and visual data so that the audience can learn and understand about your brand, its expertise, and products and services. Content marketing is critical for achieving brand reputation, recognition, and building trust. It is also crucial in increasing inquiries and pushing sales for higher revenues. 

Content marketing strategy is made as an operational blueprint to create and keep track of all posts, papers, publishing schedules, and platforms. It is the system through which content marketing is efficiently performed. Content marketing statistics help review and re-design the strategy to get better ROI (Return On Investment) and higher conversion rates. 

Getting real-time statistics and data to analyze the effectiveness of the content strategy can help save thousands of dollars in the long term and help determine the best content marketing techniques for the business. 

Why Should You Invest In Content Marketing?

Businesses that need an online media presence should always invest in content marketing. Digital media marketing agencies help increase brand awareness and brand loyalty. They help build trust while creating engaging content that positions the business as a trusted source of information. Once the audience starts depending on the content, they will share it on their social media profiles and tag friends. 

Content marketing also helps in increasing sales conversion rates. The more engaging and absorbing the content, the higher is the chance that people will remain on your site for longer. Digital marketing agencies help ensure that the content stays exciting and engaging and is hugely relevant to the customer. 

Another reason to invest in content marketing is that it can help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) through keywords, titles, metadata, subheadings, photos, etc. SEO helps your site rank higher on search engines. Even with the ever-changing algorithms, good quality content with relevant keywords will help the site rank on the first two pages of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). 

Content marketing helps maintain a brand voice. This is probably one of the most critical aspects of why you should invest in content marketing. Maintaining the brand voice and tone throughout all social media posts, blogs, articles, audio, and visual content helps create a strong brand identity. Skilled digital marketing agencies can ensure that the brand image, voice, and reputation remain intact throughout the strategic marketing exercise. Investing in content marketing is always a great decision since it helps your brand connect with clients, potential customers, and passive audiences. It also helps showcase all products and services and makes your brand likable and exciting in the long term. 

9 Stats That Will Make You Want To Invest In Content Marketing

1. Content Strategy Statistics

Most people wonder if the content strategy really works. After all, if you have content, it should sell, right? Wrong! Most marketers believe that a sound strategy that considers the pros and cons of the business, its target audience, and demographics will be far more effective than just randomly dumping content on the website and on social media sites.

Nearly 50% of marketers believe that content is a priceless business asset. However, not all marketers know how to use content marketing effectively. 45% of marketers feel that they can efficiently use content marketing but are not using them to their full potential. Considering the lack of scope and scalability, 64% of marketers feel they would like to learn how to make better content strategies. 

The same can be said of the level of content marketing commitment from an organizational perspective, which stands at a dismal approximate of 40%. Yet, marketers see a rise in content strategy, with 53% believing that the approach taken towards content marketing is a success. Like we’ve mentioned earlier, the most crucial aspect of content strategy is successful content creation. In a survey conducted, 78% of marketers believe that content marketing is a success because of the efficiency and quality of the created content. 

This being said, 36% of marketers do not know how to set up workflows, and 46% are unaware of how to map customer journeys for the client. While managing the content and understanding the strategy are critical aspects, it is also essential to stick to client specifications. Content strategy statistics are excellent for measuring individual and team performance and evaluating areas that need further training. 

2. SEO and Content Marketing

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a crucial part of content marketing. Search engine optimization helps blogs, articles, videos, and websites rank higher on search engines. Reliable, valuable content that helps users and customers will consistently rank high on search engines, especially when coupled with targeted keywords. It is always ideal to optimize all the content since 75% of people only look at the results on the first page of the search engine results page (SERP). Furthermore, 39% are impulse buyers that are wholly influenced only by search engine results. 

When it comes to search engines, Google is definitely number one. It has more than 90% of the total search volume of the world! That means billions of users prefer using Google as their primary search engine for information. Considering the sheer volume of users and the searches performed, it is essential to ensure that the content ranks high (preferable on the first page). This site is not limited only to written content. Google images rank higher than even YouTube. 

3. Digital Marketing

When digital marketing agencies and marketers talk about reaching a broad audience, getting traffic, attaining brand recognition, what percentage of the marketing is actually digital? Of course, everyone knows that digital marketing is widespread. But there is still a lot of stock in offline (print or traditional) marketing. 

According to WebStrategies Inc, 46% of the marketing revenue is spent on online marketing. However, the breakup of this budget varies according to factors like target market, expansion and growth, sector, etc. Out of this, 86.9% is allocated to social media marketing (where content plays a crucial role), and 80.4% is allotted to brand-related expenses. 

Ecommerce sites tend to spend more on digital marketing, whereas traditional businesses usually mix online and offline marketing strategies and budgets. Marketing revenue streams were significantly impacted by the pandemic, and a major chunk was kept aside for digital and social media marketing. Content marketing became a high priority since everyone was under lockdown. 

4. Social Media and Content

The largest investment in content marketing is usually made through social media marketing, with Facebook boasting an approximate 2.8 billion active monthly users. With these many active users, it is natural that Facebook has become the most prominent content distribution hub for content marketers worldwide. In addition, nearly two-thirds of the world’s population has a mobile phone with social media connectivity. 

The pandemic’s start in 2020 to May 2021 saw nearly half a billion more social media signups with more than a million new average users each month. In addition, sites like Pinterest saw an increase to 459 million active monthly users in the last quarter of 2020. While Facebook is still one of the best channels for content marketing, other platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram also rank incredibly high in shareability, viewership, and content relevancy. 

5. Conversion Rate Optimization Statistics

Content marketing is an excellent method to drive traffic. However, marketers have to direct the traffic to take action. This voluntary shift from traffic to action is measured by the term conversion rate optimization. Audiences must be given a definitive call to action. 

Paid search has a conversion rate of 2.9%, with organic search conversion following closely at 2.7%. However, the referral conversion rate has been 3%, which beat even paid search conversion rates. This is because consumers with an intent to purchase are usually the easiest to convert (referrals). The trick lies in marketing and content strategies for higher conversions on paid and organic searches. Content marketing plays a critical role in organic searches since the content is information-based and is of great value to consumers. 

While conversion rate optimization plays a crucial role in content marketing, it is necessary to optimize other areas like landing pages and existing content collateral to convert passive customers into active ones to see a substantial increase in numbers. 

6. Mobile Content Marketing Statistics

When speaking about content marketing, we cannot ignore mobile content marketing stats. Since most users access online content directly through their smartphones, it goes without saying that mobile stats play a critical role in tilting the scales. Nearly 55.31% of the content is viewed on mobiles as against the 41.97% of desktops. Almost 97% of Americans use cellular phones, with 85% owning smartphones. Mobile phones now see a whopping 70% of social media time as against desktop usage. 

Ericsson Mobility also predicts that mobile content traffic will increase by 25% by 2025. Service providers have also seen increased data traffic by nearly 10 to 20% during the pandemic. These numbers are astonishing considering the unprecedented growth and conversion rates from mobile phone users. Mobile users also tend to shop a lot more than average, and comparison searches starting with ‘best’ have increased by nearly 80%. 

Mobile device target optimization and enhancing user experience should be a crucial element of the content marketing strategy since landing pages load differently on handheld devices and desktops. Therefore, content should be thoroughly optimized to load in less than 2 seconds on all devices to see excellent conversion rates. 

7. Email Marketing and Content

Email marketing is still one of the best ROI (Return On Investment) content marketing channels available. Smart Insights claims that the ROI on every dollar spent is nearly $40. For digital marketers, personalization is the key to successful email campaign optimization. As a result, 85% of marketers use email marketing software for excellent audience engagement. 

B2B marketers using email marketing newsletters account for nearly 81% of the content marketing activity. Email newsletters also contribute 31% of nurturing leads with high conversion rates. Considering the scope of email marketing, organic leads from emails are nearly 87%.

According to Campaign Monitor, the average opening rate of emails is 18%. These figures clearly show us that email marketing is effective for customer acquisition, retention, and lead nurturing. Marketers should pay special attention to promoting email campaigns that bring in passive audiences. It is also best practice to personalize each email and segment the mailing list according to existing subscribers. 

8. Marketing Automation Statistics

Marketing automation has changed the face of content marketing efficiency. Most digital marketing firms invest in good quality content marketing automation software systems for increased precision and efficiency. The various software available also helps reduce overheads and helps deliver personalized content without any errors. Marketing automation systems are mainly used for lead generation systems and higher conversion rates. 

Implementing successful marketing automation systems could lead to an average increase of 451% in relevant leads, with a 14.5% increase in sales productivity. Marketing automation systems also account for 77% of the conversions. 

The marketing automation software business is expected to grow to 11.46 billion dollars by 2027. Early-stage investors in content marketing software and systems are sure to see an increase in ROI in the long term. Sales revenues also shot up by 47%, with a 36% improvement in customer engagement. 

Content marketing strategies implemented via marketing automation systems will save time, money and scale projects in real-time. 

9. Video/ Visual Content Marketing Statistics

Images and video have picked up at an astonishing rate. Instagram reels and TikTok videos are on the rise. With so many users and potential customers on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and many more, it stands to reason that video and images play a critical role in content marketing. Most businesses rely on written content for things like annual reports, presentations, reports to key stakeholders, stock reports, etc. however, when connecting with potential and existing customers, video and visual content are necessary. 

A picture indeed speaks a thousand words. In content marketing, memes, GIFs, videos, reels, dance videos, explainer content, and a host of other video and image styles make a difference on the bottom line. 

Final Thoughts

87% of marketers feel that video has increase interest and leads to websites, with 96% viewers actively watching explainer video content. In addition, 79% of customers claimed they made a purchase after seeing a product video online. Apart from videos and images, infographics are a powerful visual tool. Infographics amount to nearly 61% of mediums that affect learning and growth. They are also amongst the most shared type of content online.