The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) kicked off the month of October the best way it knows how: by revealing its fifth annual content marketing survey, “B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America.” According to CMI Founder Joe Pulizzi, the report, produced by CMI and MarketingProfs and sponsored by Brightcove, is an indicator that 2015 will be the biggest and best year yet for the content marketing community.
Take a look below at our top highlights from CMI’s newest content marketing survey. Pulizzi believes the key takeaway is that marketers who take the time to document their content marketing strategy are more effective than those who don’t.
The Majority of B2B Marketers Have a Content Marketing Strategy—it’s Just Not Documented
In last year’s survey, 49 percent of marketers said they didn’t have a documented content marketing strategy. By “documented,” we mean something other than a verbal strategy; something that is strategized and mapped out in written form. This year, the survey dug deeper and found that the majority (85 percent) of marketers do in fact have a strategy, but only 35 percent have documented it.
B2B Marketers with a Documented Strategy are more Effective Because there is Follow-through
The survey found that 60 percent of marketers with a documented strategy consider their organization effective with their content marketing; only about half (32 percent) of marketers without a documented strategy could say the same. Furthermore, 62 percent of marketers with a documented plan said their content marketing strategy closely guides their business efforts, whereas only 28 percent without one could say the same.
Marketers with a documented strategy were also able to more successfully track ROI and publish new content on a daily or weekly basis. On the whole, the study found that tracking ROI has become more challenging for marketers since last year, with only 21 percent saying they are successful at doing so.
Think about it: if you verbally tell someone you’ll do something, you’re more likely to forget, and there’s no accountability for whether the task was completed or not. But if you make a written agreement with that person, you will be much more likely to follow through.
Marketers Are Producing Even More Content
Content creation continues to increase, regardless of how effective organizations feel they are at content marketing or whether or not they have a documented strategy. Seventy percent of marketers say they are churning out more content than they were one year ago. Additionally, 36 percent of B2B marketers say they will begin working on measuring content ROI within the next 12 months.
The Average B2B Marketer is Working on 13 Content Marketing Initiatives
The average B2B marketer isn’t slowing down for anyone. CMI presented marketers with 28 content marketing initiatives—like “creating more engaging content” and “measuring content ROI”—and asked them to indicate which they are currently working on. Marketers said they are working on more than a dozen, meaning if your content marketing team isn’t ready to step up its game, your content will likely lose relevance and your brand awareness will diminish.
Check out the rest of the survey’s highlights in the link above and let us know what you think!
