25 Data‑Driven Content Marketing Statistics

For the uninitiated, content marketing is all about providing value to your potential customers, rather than trying to sell to them. Instead of directly promoting a brand, it builds a meaningful relationship with the audience, which should ultimately result in more sales. In this article, we’ll cover all the content marketing statistics you need to know, from current trends to associated costs. 

Content Marketing Stats (Editor’s Choice)

• 82% of marketers actively invest in content marketing.
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing.
• Content marketing costs up to 41% less than paid search.
• 92% of content marketers are producing blogs.
• 79% of companies aim to generate more quality leads through content marketing.
• Almost 60% of marketers reuse content 2–5 times.
• The coronavirus impacted the video marketing plans of 40% of marketers.
• 87% of B2B marketers use social media to distribute content.

General Content Marketing Statistics

1. Content marketing is set to become a $412.88 billion worth industry. 

Content marketing is more affordable than traditional advertising and it’s a great method for building trust by focusing on the audience rather than the brand. Estimates are the industry will reach $412.88 billion by the end of 2021 at a 16% compound annual growth rate. 

(The Drum)

2. More than 80% of marketers actively invest in content marketing.

The fact that 82% of marketers are actively investing in content creation speaks volumes about content marketing effectiveness. A lot of businesses are leveraging digital content marketing to not only boost brand awareness and connect with the audience but also to engage them and convert more leads.

(Hubspot)

3. Agencies mostly create blog posts and social media content for their content marketing clients. 

93% of content marketing specialists that offer a full scope of content marketing services and 89% of marketers that offer specialized content marketing-related services are creating articles or blog posts for their clients. Stats on content marketing indicate that social media content is the second most sought-after with 90% and 89% of respective agencies creating it. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

4. 62% of marketing agencies are seeing increased demand for content marketing services. 

Nearly half of the digital marketing agencies have been offering content marketing services for more than 7 years and in recent times, they have seen a 62% increase in demand. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

5. Over 70% of content marketers reported their company’s content marketing efforts resulted in more/much more success. 

When comparing the results from their content marketing efforts in 2020 and 2019, 71% of marketers believe they have seen more or much more success. The latest content marketing statistics show that another 21% saw the same level of success and only 8% reported less success or much less success.

(SEMrush)

6. 28% of marketers have reduced their digital advertising budgets to spend more on content creation.

Technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate, and marketers’ jobs depend on keeping up with it. They might have just felt they were getting a grip on digital advertising (the supposed successor of traditional advertising) when new content marketing trends emerged. 28% might not seem like a huge number but considering how important digital advertising has been in the past two decades, we’d argue that this is a pretty seismic shift. 

(Gartner)

7. 78% of chief marketing officers see content marketing as the future of the industry.

Old habits die hard, and it certainly took time for old-school marketers to grasp the importance of content marketing. While it might not necessarily be their “priority,” modern-day CMOs recognize that creative content marketing is the future. And as content marketing facts demonstrate, they’re already taking pretty drastic steps to make sure they’re ready for it. 

(Demand Metric)

8. Content marketing “leaders” generate 7.8x more web traffic than “followers.”

While quantity is certainly important, quality is still key. Marketers who understand the content marketing industry, and take the time and effort to create quality content, reap substantially better rewards than those who don’t. 

(Upland Software)

Benefits of Content Marketing

9. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing while generating 3 times as many leads, content marketing stats show.

Things like “building a trusting relationship” sound nice, but at the end of the day, the goal behind content marketing is the same as any other form of marketing: to make money, preferably while spending as little as possible. As lead nurturing stats show, by aligning the content with the prospect’s buyer journey stage, you can also increase the CRO by 72%.

(Demand Metric)

10. Helpful brand content makes 70% of consumers claim they feel closer to the brand. 

Content marketing facts directly link content with a brand’s success. Two-thirds of consumers feel closer to the brand after reading a helpful piece of branded content and 82% claim branded content helps them form a more favorable opinion. After reading educational content, consumers are 131% more likely to make a purchase. 

(The Keen Folks)

11. Content marketing costs up to 41% less than paid search.

Paid search, which makes sites more visible on search engines, has been popular with marketers for many years now. Digital media stats, however, indicate that web content marketing costs considerably less than paid search. And it still delivers comparable, if not superior, results.

(Databox)

12. 70% of consumers prefer to find out about a product from an article rather than an advertisement. 

Consumers would take reading branded content over advertisements. It seems like a softer approach to simply read about a product without being pushed into buying it but rather decide for themselves whether they want to try it out. Content-wise, consumers are 4x more likely to watch a video than reading text so including a video into your branded content can help you boost engagement.

(Demand Metric)

Content Marketing Trends

13. Just under 80% of companies aim to generate more quality leads through content marketing. 

The majority (79%) of companies are looking to attract more quality leads through content marketing and 75% are looking to attract more traffic. For 57%, the main goal is to improve brand reputation, 47% want to improve customer engagement and loyalty. A slightly lower number are leveraging content marketing to promote the positioning of new products. 

(SEMrush)

14. The majority of content marketing leaders focus more on engagement and conversion than traffic.

As content marketing stats will show, web traffic isn’t everything! While it was the number one goal when online marketing was first being developed, it is lagging, according to advertising statistics. Online traffic alone is too general, too vague. Marketers prefer to target more specific content marketing metrics like engagement and conversion, which are arguably more likely to lead to actual sales.

(SpeedProd)

15. Almost 60% of marketers reuse content 2–5 times.

Creating quality content takes time. But articles like “how-to” guides, and other evergreen content, don’t lose their appeal after they’ve been posted once. They continue to be relevant for months, if not years, and smart marketers take advantage of this by reusing the content. Stats on content marketing highlight that for 51% of organizations, updating old content is the most efficient tactic.

(Neil Patel)

16. For 75% of organizations search engine optimization is the most efficient content marketing tactic.

The majority of companies believe SEO is the most effective content marketing tactic. It’s cost-effective and brings long-term results. For another 61%, updating and repurposing content is most likely to generate success. Publishing more educational content (45%), creating more visual content (41%), and optimizing customer journey (41%) are also cited as the most effective content marketing tactics.

(SEMrush)

17. 37% of companies are investing $10,000 or less in content marketing.

The increased competition drove an increase in content marketing budgets. According to content marketing investment stats, 37% of companies are spending up to $10,000 in their content marketing efforts, 19% put in $10,000-$25,000 and 16% invest $25,000-$100,000. This trend is set to increase with 68% of respondents expecting to increase their content marketing budget in 2021.

(SEMrush)

18. Over 35% of content marketers are creating content for three audience segments. 

The majority of marketers create content tailored for multiple audience segments. Most commonly, they create content for three, two, or five audience segments. Just over 10% of marketers are creating content for only one audience segment. Content for four audience segments is the least likely, content marketing facts show.

(Hubspot)

Content Marketing Strategy Statistics

19. 96% of content marketing leaders use content or editorial calendars.

Success in content marketing doesn’t just happen by accident. One of the most important factors, by far, is staying organized. The best marketers—otherwise known as “leaders”—have a defined schedule for both creating and posting their content. This ensures a degree of consistency, in both the content’s frequency and delivery, which is vital to long-term success.

(SpeedProd)

20. 84% of businesses have a documented content strategy.

Given that a documented strategy is a fundamental part of successful content marketing, more and more marketers started implementing it. As of 2020, the majority of businesses have a defined, dedicated strategy. As stats on content marketing show, 51% of those implementing content strategy rate its performance as good, 11% say it’s excellent, and 30% see it as average.

(SEMrush)

21. 46% of marketers rate their content marketing strategy as promising. 

In terms of maturity and complexity of content marketing strategy, nearly half of marketers consider it promising and 20% rate it as advanced. Another 22% of marketers think their strategy is young and only 6% view it as mature.  

(SEMrush)

22. 83% of organizations made quick changes to their content marketing strategy as a response to the pandemic. 

The majority of content marketers quickly adapted to the changes and quickly adjusted the strategy. The CMI content marketing research shows that 80% of them believe that their changes were effective. 86% think that some of the changes will continue to be effective in the future too. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

B2B Content Marketing Statistics

23. Nine out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has had a moderate to major impact on their purchases.

Content marketing isn’t just used for B2C purposes, but for B2B too. It can be a much harder task given that you’re marketing to a much smaller audience with B2B, but it indisputably works. 

(The Marketing Blender)

24. 86% of marketers list “brand awareness” among their B2B content marketing goals.

Few people buy from a brand they’ve never heard of, which is why raising brand awareness has been key since the dawn of marketing. The whole reason marketers spend so much time on those aforementioned billboards is to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Marketers are generally trying to achieve the same goal: to get people to hear about their brand. They’re just going about it in a completely different way now. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

25. B2B marketers use an average of 12 content marketing tactics.

One of the things that differentiate modern marketing from that of the past is the sheer number of avenues a marketer can take. While some might see this as overwhelming, the latest B2B content marketing stats that professional marketers have happily seized the opportunities this presents. They now have a multitude of ways to reach all sorts of demographics, which skillful marketers can weave together into an effective strategy. 

(Demand Metric)

26. Successful B2B marketers spend an average of 39% of their budget on content marketing.

Marketers who get the best results from content marketing are the ones who commit a sizable chunk of their precious budget toward it. That chunk is already approaching the 50% mark and, with how things are going, could very well reach it in the next couple of years.

(Content Marketing Institute)

27. 71% of B2B marketers use paid methods to distribute content.

Content marketing (and inbound content marketing in general) is considerably cheaper than more traditional methods, and we’ve got the content marketing statistics to back that up. Aside from paying for content creation, whether it’s done in-house or by a freelancer, the majority of B2B marketers also spend money on actually distributing the content. Whether it’s done by sponsored backlinks or social media advertising, paid distribution helps content find a much wider audience than it otherwise would.

(Business2Community)

28. 94% of B2B content marketers changed their strategy as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest B2B marketing statistics pinpoint 94% of content marketers who have modified their digital content marketing strategy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 70% changed their targeting and messaging strategy, 64% modified their editorial calendars, and 53% tweaked their strategy for content distribution and promotion.

(Content Marketing Institute)

B2C Content Marketing Statistics

29. 73% of B2C organizations use content marketing.

According to a content marketing study from CMI, 42% have a documented strategy which is an improvement of 33% from last year. Nearly 30% of B2C marketers describe their content strategy as mature, 28% as adolescent, and 24% as young. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

30. 52% of B2C marketers have small or one-person content marketing teams. 

A recent survey shows that small or one-person content marketing teams are prevalent with small organizations with up to 99 employees. 23% have a centralized team that works with multiple departments throughout the company, whereas 20% have both a centralized team and individual teams in place. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

31. 49% of B2C organizations outsource content marketing activities.

Statistics on content marketing show that the number of organizations that outsource any or all content marketing activities is pretty much 50/50. Larger companies with 100+ employees are more likely (56%) to outsource. The most common outsourced activity is content creation (75%), followed by content distribution (40%) and measurement (27%). 

(Content Marketing Institute)

32. 83% of B2C marketers write blog posts or short articles. 

Blog posts or short articles are the most common B2C content marketing types. Email newsletter comes second at 74%, followed by videos (62%) and infographics or other visuals (55%). Content marketing insights from the 2021 CMI report indicate that, after the coronavirus outbreak, in-person events notably decreased from 50% to 37% whereas live streaming content climbed from 13% to 35%. 

(Content Marketing Institute)

Blogging Statistics

33. Content marketing stats show 59% of B2B marketers consider blogs the most valuable channel.

If you could design the perfect way to deliver your inbound marketing, it’d probably look something like a blog. After all, this form of content can be as long or short as you want, use any tone you desire, and be fitted to any subject under the sun. 

(Demand Metric)

34. 92% of content marketers are producing blogs. 

Blog posts are the type of content that marketers are producing the most followed by email (66%), case study (47%), infographic (45%), and eBook/white paper (37%). As per the latest content marketing statistics, organic search (89%) is the top channel for content distribution, closely followed by social media (87%) and email marketing (72%).

(SEMrush)

35. 61% of consumers have purchased after reading a blog recommendation. 

While blogs might have initially been dismissed as a fad, or something only geeks living in their parents’ basement do, they’re now a fundamental part of people’s buying decisions. The majority of people have now bought something after seeing it recommended in a blog, and accordingly, blogs have become a cornerstone of the content marketing industry.

(Content Marketing Institute)

36. Companies with blogs produce 67% more leads per month than those without. 

We’ve briefly touched on blogs already, but this hammers home how important they’ve become. Content marketing statistics clearly show that blogs not only increase brand awareness but can create tangible returns too. For B2B marketers who thrive on generating leads for their companies, this is an absolute godsend. Companies that don’t have a blog in place, by contrast, are getting left in the dust. 

(Demand Metric)

37. Businesses posting 16 times per month or more get nearly 3.5 times as much traffic as those publishing blog posts 4 or less.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll surely say it again: when it comes to content marketing, the more, the better. Web traffic isn’t seen as the be-all, end-all it used to be, but it’s still an important part of how businesses generate leads. Blogging statistics suggest that businesses that put time and effort into posting almost every weekday reap the rewards in website visitors.

(Hubspot)

38. Marketers who blog are 13x more likely to achieve a positive ROI.

According to content marketing ROI statistics, blogging is 13x more likely to get a positive return on investment. Marketers who blog also get on average 434% indexed pages which can boost the lead and sales conversion rates. Websites with blogs attract 97% more inbound links which improves the domain authority, boosting the site’s rank on the SERPs. 

(Fundera)

Social Media Content Statistics

39. Facebook is the top channel content marketers are creating content for. 

Almost 30% of content marketers that participated in a Hubspot study cited Facebook as the channel they create content for. The company’s website and Instagram are also among the most popular channels, content marketing statistics indicate. 

(Hubspot)

40. 87% of B2B marketers use social media to distribute content.

The age of social media used solely to share baby photos and videos of cute cats ended long ago. Nowadays, social media experts should be part of every marketing team. After all, producing content is only half the battle. You then have to send it out into the world and get people to read it.  

(Demand Metric)

41. 69% of adults are regular Facebook users. 

For all its negative news and its age, Facebook is still the undisputed king of social media. It’s certainly not just for kids and teenagers, either—69% of adults (i.e., the people who have money to spend) use it too. The fact that it has an extremely active user base, with 74% of Facebook users visiting daily, makes it a necessary tool for all content marketers, statistics on content marketing show. 

(Pew Research Center)

42. 66% of people have discovered a new business on Twitter. 

Arguably, it’s not especially surprising that people are willing to make purchases based on blog recommendations. As we see here, though, a content marketer who fails to explore every tool available—including less heralded ones like Twitter—actually misses out on a big opportunity. Social media marketing statistics further show that 94% of consumers plan to buy something from a brand they follow on Twitter, whereas almost 70% have already bought something after being inspired by a tweet. 

(Twitter)

Video Content Marketing Statistics

43. Content marketers using video achieve a 66% higher average website conversion rate than those who don’t.

Marketing is all about understanding your target audience. In many ways, content marketing already reflects its consumers’ changing habits (as we’ve seen earlier in this article), with the proliferation of blogs and social media usage. Here we have another extremely useful example of how doing this leads to excellent results. Content marketers who’ve already exploited this trend have achieved incredibly impressive conversion rates, visual content marketing statistics show.

(Aberdeen)

44. 57% of marketers believe video is the hardest form of content to produce.

The flip side of video content, of course, is that it’s pretty darn hard to produce! The majority of marketers list it as the single toughest form of content to create. It’s not hard to imagine why—quality video creation requires the right equipment, plenty of planning, skillful direction, proper editing, and a sometimes lengthy uploading process. We’d say that marketers have the best shot at ripping the benefits of video content if they hire a professional video production team instead of doing it alone. 

(G2)

45. Explainer videos are the most common type of video content produced. 

73% of marketers are creating explainer videos, as per the latest video content marketing stats. Social media videos are the second most common type (67%), followed by presentation videos (51%), sales videos (41%), and video advertisements (41%).

(Wyzowl)

46. 87% of marketers who’ve used webinars found them effective.

There’s absolutely nothing modern about conferences or seminars, which have been held for decades. Webinars, though, use video streaming to deliver a similar level of professional education to a potentially wider audience. In doing so, they thoroughly encapsulate the spirit of content marketing by providing plenty of value to their viewers and promoting their brand in an extremely positive light. 

(G2)

47. The coronavirus impacted the video marketing plans of 40% of marketers. 

60% of marketers also expect that their video content marketing budgets will change throughout 2021. Approximately 70% of them think their budget will increase with the other 30% saying their budget will likely decrease. 

(Wyzowl)

48. 91% of marketers believe branded video has become more important than ever.

In light of the pandemic, marketers feel that creating a branded video is very important. According to visual content marketing stats, 93% of them believe video is an important marketing tool, up from 78% in 2015. 24% of marketers even started using video for the first time in 2020. 47% of these started creating video content because the coronavirus pandemic posed new challenges and 44% because creating video has become more affordable. 

(Wyzowl)

49. 69% of people prefer learning about products/services by watching a short video. 

Nearly 70% of people prefer watching a short video to find out about a product or service compared to 18% who would rather read a text article and  4% who would view an infographic. Plus, people are 2x more likely to share video content with their friends than any other content type, including social media, digital media statistics show. 

(Wyzowl)

FAQs

Sources

• The Drum
• Hubspot
• Content Marketing Institute
• SEMrush
• Gartner
• Demand Metric
• Upland Software
• The Keen Folks
• Databox
• SpeedProd
• Neil Patel
• Hubspot
• Content Marketing Institute
• The Marketing Blender
• Content Marketing Institute
• Content Marketing Institute
• Business2Community
• Content Marketing Institute
• Content Marketing Institute
• Hubspot
• Fundera
• Pew Research Center
• Twitter
• Aberdeen
• G2
• Wyzowl

By Ana Gajic