Content Marketing By the Numbers
The proof is in the numbers
Are you tired of hearing that your company has to use content marketing in order to succeed? It’s a term being thrown around a lot in the marketing world, but a lot of people aren’t buying into the idea that content marketing is the end-all-be-all yet.
But you should.
Content marketing can take your business to the next level by getting more people on your site and interacting with your brand. Don’t just take my word for it though: Check out these statistics that will show you exactly how important content marketing is to your company.
CONTENT MARKETING OVERVIEW
74% of B2B buyers do extensive research before making a purchasing decision (Forrester).
Are buyers going to find your product during their extensive research phase? If you don’t have content, probably not.
70% Of B2B content marketers say that their efforts were more successful in 2018 than in previous years (Search Engine Watch).
Content marketing is really hitting its stride. If you don’t start working on your content marketing now, you’ll be left behind.
32% of marketers think their content creation workflow is fair or poor (CMI).
Do you have a good process for the creation, posting and maintenance of all of your content across all channels?
Only 39% of content marketers have a documented strategy (CMI).
If you don’t write it down, how will anyone else on the team know the plan?
60% of people find it hard to produce content consistently (Zazzle Media).
If you don’t have a documented process, creating content on a consistent basis is going to be next to impossible.
SOCIAL MEDIA
61% of content marketers have increased their use of social media for promoting content (Search Engine Watch).
Content marketers are increasing social media posting because….
74% of buyers are influenced by social media when making a purchasing decision (Sprout Social).
If your buyers are on social media, why aren’t you?
26% of US adults are almost always online and 77% of U.S. adults go online day, either once or several times a day (Pew Research).
Along those lines, if your audience is browsing online, you need to have content for them to browse to.
66% of people have found a new business on Twitter, while 69% of people bought something because of a tweet and 94% plan to make a purchase from a business they follow (Twitter).
Think Twitter isn’t a great place to reach consumers? Think again!
But social media isn’t the only place you need to be using content marketing.
SEARCH
95% of people only look at the first page of search results (Brafton).
When was the last time you clicked to the second page of Google? If your content isn’t showing up on the first page, it’s not being read. Period.
Half of the clicks on SERPs go to the top 3 results (Ignite Visibility).
Again, the higher in the search results, the better.
Comparison searches using “best” have increased by 80% in the last two years (Google).
I know I do this every time I need to buy a product in a category I’ve never tried before. With so many similar products on the market, I’d bet this number will continue to increase as consumers try to ensure they are getting the best product for their money.
53% of visitors leave your site if the content doesn’t load in 3 seconds or less (Google).
With the internet so fast these days, no one wants to wait around for your page to load. Make sure you are optimizing for speed.
90% of searchers haven’t made their mind up about a brand before starting their search (Status Labs).
This is great news for small companies. If you can get on the first page of results and have convincing content, you can win a lot of customers over to you.
72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles (Wordstream).
If you are looking for something you need immediately, you’re going to search for a store near you. And if you need it badly, you’ll go there immediately.
Local searches lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within one day (Google).
And if you need it badly, you’ll go there immediately.
The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words (Backlinko).
Longer is better for content these days. With the caveat that it needs to be 1,900 quality words.
50% of search queries are four words or longer (IMPACT).
Long-tail keywords are your friend. Target them. Optimize for them. Be their best buddy.
By 2020, 50% of all online searches will be voice searches (Wordstream).
As Siri and Alexa become more and more common (and easy to use), more and more people are going to ask their questions rather than type them. You need to make sure your content is ready for voice queries.
BLOGS
Blog post titles with 6–13 words get the most traffic (Hubspot).
Don’t get too wordy with your titles. Another good tip: Titles over 60 characters get cut off in search results. Don’t get cut off.
The average blog post is 1,142 words long (Orbit Media).
This is way less than the average first Google result. Can you guess why the average blog post isn’t the first result?
The posts that get the most shares are more than 3,000 words long (OKDork).
If you want to go viral on social media, you should definitely go for the long haul with words.
Articles with relevant images get 94% more views, on average, compared to articles without images (MGD Advertising).
Images are your friend. No one wants to read a solid wall of just text (at least, not online — books are great solid walls of text). Just don’t throw images in for the sake of images; make sure they relate to what your content is saying.
79% of B2B buyers share white papers with colleagues (Forbes).
If you are selling to businesses, you should absolutely be writing white papers. They get shared around the industry and within companies, spreading your message and your brand.
PODCASTS
45% of global internet users aged 25–34 listen to podcasts (Statista).
Podcasts are a great way to target younger audiences.
40% of Americans listen to podcasts (Statista).
And that number keeps increasing. Get on the bandwagon now, before it leaves you behind.
15% of Americans listen to a podcast at least once a week (Edison Research).
Podcasts are the next big thing in content marketing. You need to get started now.
INFOGRAPHICS, VIDEO AND WEBINARS
84% of those using infographics find them effective (Forbes).
Infographics are a great way to get your message across in an easy-to-read way.
Video is trusted by 40% of millennials and half of those aged 18–34 would stop what they’re doing to watch a new video (Google).
If you want to grab people’s attention, create a video with an exceptionally compelling first 5 seconds. That’s when you hook your audience.
Marketers who use video get 66% more leads per year (Aberdeen Group).
If people are stopping to watch your video, they’ll be more likely to react and respond to your message. Get their attention, get their buy-in.
Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search results than plain text (Omnicore).
If you are looking up how to do something, are you going to read a blog about it or watch a quick video?
Including a video in a post increases organic traffic from search results by 157% (Search Engine People).
Combine the power of a long blog with the power of a video and you get an unstoppable content machine! Also, views.
Using videos on landing pages will increase conversions by 86% (Wordstream).
If your landing page isn’t converting, try using a video to ask people to convert.
87% of marketers who hosted or participated in a webinar found them effective (Wyzowl).
I don’t know about you, but I love webinars. When done right, it’s a great way to get a lot of information in a short amount of time.
49% plan to host or take part in a webinar this year (Wyzowl).
This one is pretty straight-forward.
2–5% of webinar attendees make a purchase (Branded Solopreneur).
This doesn’t seem like a lot until you consider how often you can host webinars. It gets even better if you have a product that’s a subscription or something that needs to be repeatedly purchased.
20–40% of webinar attendees become leads (Ready Talk).
Who doesn’t want more leads?
MOBILE
52% of all web traffic will be mobile by the end of the year (Statista).
As smartphones become more powerful, more people rely on them for almost everything, including searches and purchases.
One in ten Americans is a smartphone-only user so their phone is the only way to reach them (Pew Internet).
Why buy a laptop or iPad if you can have a super powerful iPhone with a huge screen (I’m looking at you iPhone 11 Pro Max)?
79% of social media time happens on a mobile device (Marketing Land).
It’s the easiest way to scroll mindlessly, after all, no matter where you are.
Mobile email opens grew 30% in the last year (Campaign Monitor).
Again, the ease of smartphones makes it easy to check email anywhere, so it’s getting checked (and opened) more often.
More than 46% of Americans will check their smartphone before getting out of bed (Tech Times).
While very bad for our mental and physical health, it’s great news for marketer and business owners. You can get in front of your customers before they get distracted by anything else.
Over 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while conducting a search on their smartphone (Google).
Make sure your website is optimized for mobile traffic or else you won’t be one of those discovered.
Email has an ROI of $40 for every dollar spent (Smart Insights).
Who doesn’t want that kind of return on their investment??
We send 74-trillion emails a year (Lifewire).
WOW, that’s a high number.
Approximately 90% of U.S. adults use email (Statista).
I want to know what the other 10% are using. Morse code? Skywriting?
95% of professionals use email (Smart Data Collective).
Again, what are those 5% using??
A/B testing boosts email marketing conversions by 49% (Campaign Monitor).
Don’t assume you know the best way to phrase an email. Prove it by testing it. You may find a new way to email that blows your competition out of the water by accident.
TO SUM IT UP
As the numbers show, content marketing increases your results exponentially, in every category. If you don’t want to increase profitability, leads and brand awareness, by all means, ignore content. If you do want to grow your business, maybe you should look into that thing called content marketing.
Anastasia Voll is a content marketing strategist who specializes in helping women entrepreneurs find their voice and attract their ideal clients.
You can learn more about her and how to work with her at www.vollcontentmarketing.com.
