As consumer behaviors shift with digital trends, content marketing grows in new and exciting ways. From authoritative written content to engaging and memorable videos, marketers of all varieties must strive for originality and innovation if they want to stand out in the crowd. While visual content is more important than ever, custom content has the power to increase sales and boost brand loyalty. Here are 50 content marketing statistics that you can use when planning out your content strategy for 2016.
Content Strategy
• 70% of marketers lack a stable content marketing strategy. (Altimeter)
• 72% of B2B marketers are focusing on highly engaging content in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 44% of B2B marketers and 48% of B2C marketers meet daily or weekly to discuss their content marketing strategy. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 93% of brand marketers plan to maintain or increase their marketing budget. (MarketingSherpa)
• 76% of B2B marketers say they are increasing their content output in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 75% of marketers say that in-person events are effective. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 85% of marketers say they create content mainly to build brand awareness. (MarketingSherpa)
• 66% of B2B marketers use Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and rate it at 55% effective. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 60% of B2B marketers say that producing engaging content is their biggest challenge for 2016, while 57% say that measuring effectiveness and producing content consistently is their biggest challenge. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 37% of B2C marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 93% of marketers connect content directly to services or products. (MarketingSherpa)
• 51% of B2B marketers say that they will increase their budget in 2016, while 35% will keep the same budget as 2015. (Content Marketing Institute)
• B2C marketers allocate 32% of their overall budget to content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute)
Social Media
• 93% of B2B marketers are using social media in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)
• LinkedIn is the most-used social media platform for B2B marketers at 94%, with Twitter following at 87% and Facebook at 84%. (Content Marketing Institute)
• B2B marketers give LinkedIn a 66% effectiveness rating, Twitter a 55% effectiveness rating, and Facebook a 30% effectiveness rating. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Facebook posts with images have 2.3x more engagement than posts without images. (Buzzsumo)
• Facebook has 1.09 billion active daily users and an average of 989 million active daily users on mobile devices. (Facebook)
• The Instagram community hit 400 million members in 2015. (Instagram)
• Instagram photos that show faces are 38% more likely to get ‘Likes’ than those that do not. (Georgia Tech)
• Twitter has 310 million monthly active users, with 83% of active users on mobile devices. (Twitter)
• Pinterest has 100 million monthly active pinners with some of the most popular topics including food/drink, fashion, decor, and education. (Pinterest)
• 80% of Pinterest pins are re-pins. (Jeff Bullas)
• As of July 2015, Periscope users were watching 40 years’ worth of video every day. (Periscope)
Visual Content
• 79% of B2B marketers are using video content in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 67% of B2B marketers are using infographics in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Content with color increases readability by 80%. (Xerox)
• 79% of marketers believe video will become increasingly important in the future. (CMO Council)
• 57% of marketers feel that infographics are important in content marketing. (CMO Council)
• 46% of marketers feel that photography is critical in content marketing. (CMO Council)
• Content with images gets 94% more views than content without. (Jeff Bullas)
• Mobile video plays increased 844% from 2012 to 2015. (Ooyala)
• Using the word “video” in email subject lines increases click-through rates by 65%. (Syndacast)
• 74% of all Web traffic in 2017 will be through video content. (Syndacast)
Written Content
• 81% of B2B marketers are blogging in 2016. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Companies with active blogs receive 97% more links to their website than companies without active blogs. (Business 2 Community)
• 1 in 5 bloggers don’t use analytics or uses them rarely. (Orbit Media)
• 90% of consumers find custom content like blogs, buying guides, and articles useful. (Jadite Inc)
• 95% of businesses with a blog receive higher search ranks than those without. (Jadite Inc)
• Written content between 3,000 and 10,000 words receive the most social shares. (Buzzsumo)
• 85% of global business leaders prefer text-based articles over video or audio content. (MarketingSherpa)
• The typical length of a blog post is 900 words or up. (Orbit Media)
• Awe, humor, and amusement are three of the most popular emotions evoked through content. (Buzzsumo)
• Lists and infographics receive the most shares on average. (Buzzsumo)
• Websites with blogs typically have 434% more indexed pages than those without blogs. (Ignite Spot)
• 90% of consumers find custom content valuable. (TMG Custom Media)
• Brands that produce 15 blog posts per month generate an average 1,200 new leads each month. (HubSpot)
• 58% of marketers believe that original written content is the most important type of content. (Social Media Examiner)
• Long-form blog posts generate 9x more page views on average than shorter blog posts. (Curata)
• 52% of bloggers do not use an editor, while 16% of bloggers use a formal editing process before posting content. (Orbit Media)
