The primary goal of any organization that sets up a website is to attract relevant visitors who can be converted into clients. However, this is not always achieved, as the website may not be easily seen by the target audience due to competition from the many sites in the same field. To attract the relevant audience in the particular field to your website, you must use search engine optimization (SEO). Among the strategies that SEO employs is content marketing.
Content marketing has been drastically changing over the years in response to changing customer needs and the necessity to match the competition. As a marketer or a website owner, it is vital to constantly evaluate content marketing strategies to make sure they are still relevant, and to know what has been working for you and what has not been working. One great way to stay updated on content marketing strategies is to have an understanding of the Content Marketing Institute’s Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends Report. The CMI conducted its ninth-year survey among content marketers all over the world on the leading trends related to strategy, tools, proficiency, planning, and other things that will improve performance in content marketing.
Here are some top content marketing statistics that you should be aware of to help you master SEO in 2020:
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70% of B2B content marketers observe that their organization’s content marketing is more successful than a year ago.
Many marketers noted an increase in the success of content marketing initiatives in their organizations, which is a positive thing, as it makes content marketing a more respected strategy and shows that it’s maturing. With this improvement, marketers have seen the potential of content marketing, and companies feel the need to have bigger budgets for content marketing campaigns. Also, having seen the success and benefits of content marketing, this strategy will include more team members. In addition, 93% of the most successful B2B content marketers in the survey explained that their organizations are very committed to content. It turns out that there is a direct relationship between the level of serious commitment and the level of the success of content marketing initiatives. It shows that after the senior management understands and implements content marketing, the success of the strategy is highly attainable.
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Only 39% of marketers have content marketing strategy documented
The existence of a documented marketing strategy in a company enables the marketers to be properly organized and to make use of the team more efficiently, while at the same time portraying the maturity of a business in its marketing activities. Surprisingly, despite many marketers being aware of the possible success that content marketing can bring to their companies, only a paltry 39% have documented their strategies. While it is common to discuss your strategy and goals without writing them down, which is not in any way wrong, the report clearly demonstrates that one thing shared by all successful B2B content marketers is that they have documented their content marketing strategy. Actually, 65% of the very successful content marketers have recorded their strategies, so this could be the initial step to realizing your success. Most importantly, you need to consider engaging experts likes SEOAnalytics, who are well experienced in SEO and digital marketing in general, to help create and implement a winning strategy.
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50% of the surveyed businesses anticipate their content marketing budget will increase in the next year.
Many companies have a reasonable budget meant for content marketing, while there are others who are establishing such funds. With the evolution of content marketing, there are going be more reasons to expand the allocation of resources (time, money, and labor) to the strategy. The various areas on which the budget is spent include acquiring new technologies, hiring more or better staff, and exploring new channels. All in all, the expansion of the budget is a positive indicator. Also, it is worth noting that content creation has had a budget allocation increase every other year.
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61% of B2B content marketers have expanded their social media usage for content marketing as compared to the past year.
Social media can be a great channel for disseminating content, and this explains why it is receiving a more serious role in content marketing distribution with each passing year. Social media is quickly changing from just a social interaction tool to a crucial asset in content marketing. Content marketers can use social media to achieve several objectives, including lead generation, creating awareness, and conversion.
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66 % of B2B content marketers employ paid techniques to disseminate content.
Due to the various changes in content marketing, organic promotion alone is not sufficient, and more marketers are finding it necessary and beneficial to boost their content distribution channels. As a result, paid advertising has found a place, which has made it possible with their posts to reach more of the target audience. The main objectives of using paid advertising are:
- To build traffic when the organic or natural search does not seem to be yielding the anticipated results
- To pull new audience
- To reach a target (niche) audience
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49% of those surveyed indicated that their companies assess ROI for content marketing.
As marketers dedicate larger budgets to content marketing, it then becomes imperative to measure the initiatives’ return on investment (ROI). Almost half of the content marketers are interested in finding out how much each dollar invested in content marketing yields. Although it may be difficult to accurately measure the ROI of content marketing in straightforward ways, marketers can focus on other minor objectives derived from various campaigns and annual goals to obtain more precise data. According to the CMI report, some of the common content marketing goals in the past year include: building credibility, generating demand, creating awareness, and educating the audience.
Final Thoughts
Mastering content marketing and SEO is challenging since the demands keep rising and digital patterns are ever evolving. Nevertheless, with a well crafted strategy, big opportunities and diverse objectives can be achieved.