Pass the Louisiana Hot Sauce, cayenne pepper or Tabasco. “Content marketing” is hot.
The Content Marketing Institute (yes, there is now an institute devoted to the study of this thing that didn’t exist a couple years ago, that we all now need), defines content marketing as: “A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
Content marketing has been facilitated by many changes, most notably growth of the internet, mobile devices, tablets, social media, and the impact of the financial crisis on budgets and traditional media spending. Really, it was the perfect storm.
So this week I’ve pulled some top line insights from a very interesting study on content marketing, that I wanted to share with you. And I’m going to make a case for how to use those insights to dominate your niche by doing LESS. Interested? Read on…
The B2C Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America study was produced by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs and sponsored by EnVeritas Group. The global study was conducted in July and August 2014, with 5,167 recipients representing a full range of industries, areas and company sizes. The report findings I’ve used in this piece represent findings from 307 respondents who were B2C marketers in North America. You can download a full copy here: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2015_B2C_Research.pdf
77% of B2C respondents were using content marketing. Clearly, content is now king. Here’s a summary of the effectiveness of various tactics, how success was measured, what platforms were used, and how often new content was published.
Effectiveness ratings for B2C tactics
- Enewsletters 66%
- In person events 63%
- Photos 59%
- Social media content – other than blogs 58%
- Blogs 54%
- Videos 54%
- Articles on your website 53%
- Mobile apps 49%
- Webinars/webcasts 46%
- Online presentations 45%
Tools used to assess content marketing success:
- Website traffic 66%
- Sales 54%
- Higher conversion rates 39%
- SEO ranking 39%
- Time spent on website 38%
- Qualitative feedback from customers 35%
- Subscriber growth 34%
B2C Content marketing social media platform usage:
- Facebook 94%
- Twitter 84%
- Youtube 76%
- LinkedIn 71%
- Google + 68%
- Pinterest 59%
- Instagram 49%
How often B2C marketers publish new content:
- Daily 17%
- Multiple times per week 31%
- Weekly 16%
- Multiple times per month 11%
- Monthly 10%
- Less than once per month 9%
42% of B2B marketers publish daily or multiples times during the week.
B2C marketers are now using an average of 7 social media platforms to distribute content, compared with 6 last year. All platforms experienced some level of increase this year, except for LinkedIn, which stayed the same. The average company is now creating content for 7 (yes, seven) social media sites? No wonder everyone is so exhausted, and taking a sip from Twitter feels like blast from the fire hose! Quite simply, I don’t think it is possible to dominate a niche with your content marketing by focusing on so many channels.
This study clearly demonstrates the value of content marketing, but it also show how we are all running with the masses, afraid to not jump on board, for fear we are missing the next big thing. But really, maybe it’s time to step back and assess and kick to the curb the underperformers. I think our efforts might be better spent picking the top 2 or 3 platforms where our target audience spends time, and then developing great content that they will share on their platform of choice. Having a focus is king in content marketing. Maybe it’s time to have a focus not only on content but also on the platform for delivery?
