Sometimes we like to poke fun at the people who do research. It seems like they’re always changing their story or revising their opinions. But that is the nature of research. We have to keep observing and noticing when things change.
It’s certainly true in the world of modern marketing—and especially when it comes to content marketing. Let’s face it: people really haven’t been doing this all that long, so it’s not surprising that we’re all still learning.
That’s why it’s important (and even sometimes kind of fun!) to keep an eye on the marketplace. With that in mind, here are some recent content marketing findings that may be helpful in your never-ending pursuit of online marketing excellence!
Recently, Joe Pulizzi published some findings from the 2014 Content Marketing Institute study. You can read Joe’s full post here, but I wanted to highlight a couple of findings that I think are significant.
- Less than 10 percent of B2B marketers are successful with content marketing. If you’re struggling to demonstrate success with your content marketing efforts, you’re not alone. But part of the problem may be that we’re struggling to define just what success looks like. Sure you want people to read your content—but are you able to turn those readers into leads? Do you have a way to track that?
- Only 44 percent of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy. This may be a big reason why companies aren’t seeing success. When it comes to content marketing you can’t just, “Throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.” You need to have a reason for publishing what you do. Being busy isn’t the same thing as being successful.
- B2B Marketers with a content marketing strategy are 600 percent more likely to be effective. This goes a long way toward explaining the failure in the previous finding. You know the old adage, “If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time”? It’s still true for the world of content marketing.
- The No. 1 metric for content marketing measurement is web traffic. This is a very sad truth because it really doesn’t tell you anything. You can’t pay your bills with web traffic. Yes, getting more eyeballs on your pages is a good thing—if those “eyeballs” turn into leads and actually start doing business with you.
The thing is, the content you create and post on your website can be a hugely impactful marketing tool. Not only can it increase traffic, but it can also drive engagement with your prospects and get them to respond to you. It can help you generate qualified leads and increase the number of leads that become customers. But you need to have the right strategy—and you need to execute it properly.
We’d be happy to help. If you’d like a free marketing analysis that will provide you with actionable tips for improving the content on your website, contact us today!
