Content Marketing Statistics & Facts You Simply Must Know
Content marketing is one of the most frequently introduced strategies in online marketing by brands from all over the world and there is completely nothing strange about it. With well-planned and engaging content, you can establish trust with your audience, generate leads, improve conversion rate as well as boost web traffic, and build authority. Learn more!
Simply put, thanks to great content you can really gain a lot. But what content marketing strategies should you introduce to achieve massive success? I hope that with these content marketing strategies and facts you will make great data-driven decisions that will translate into excellent business results.
10 Facts & Statistics about Content Marketing
1. What Is the Length of a Typical Blog Post?
Statistics show that blog posts are getting longer year after year. Not so long ago, in 2014, the average length of blog posts was 808 words, in 2020 – 1269 words. This is a significant change! Over 6 years, the length of a typical post has increased by 57%. As the chart below shows, this trend has been continuing for years, that is why we can assume that in the following years the length of blog posts will continue to grow. Despite all this, you should remember that not only the quantity of content but also its quality matters. After all, Google loves content that is informative, unique, and engaging.
2. Which Content Formats Are Most Popular?
One of the first things you need to consider when planning content marketing strategies is the type of content you want to invest time and money in. And which content format is currently the most commonly chosen by marketers? This may not come as a surprise at all but 77% of marketers value how-to articles. After all, knowledge is power, right? Among other valued types of content are lists (57%), news and trends (47%), guides and ebooks (43%), opinions (43%), and interviews (39%).
3. What Are the Main Goals of Content Marketing?
In the introduction, I listed some of the potential benefits that your brand can gain from content marketing. But what are, according to marketers, the main goals that can be achieved with successful content marketing strategies? Content Marketing Institute carried out a survey, which identified the 10 most important goals:
- Create brand awareness (86%),
- Educate the audience (79%),
- Build credibility/trust (75%),
- Generate demand/leads (70%),
- Nurture subscribers/audiences (68%),
- Build loyalty with existing clients/customers (63%),
- Generate leads/revenue (53%)
- Drive attendance to one or more in-person events (52%),
- Build a subscribed audience (45%),
- Support the launch of a new product (45%).
4. Which Are the Most Desired Skills in Content Marketing?
SEMrush wanted to discover what skills are expected from candidates who apply for a job in the content marketing team. For that reason, they analyzed as many as 17000 job descriptions and prepared a list of the most common ones. So, if you want to get a job in content marketing, the following skills are an absolute must:
- marketing (81%),
- social media (50%),
- strategy (42%),
- SEO (38%),
- research (37%),
- Google Analytics (29%),
- editing (25%),
- metrics (17%),
- Adobe (12%).
5. How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Content?
If you create content, you probably already know how important it is to regularly check whether your marketing strategies translate into real results. And which metrics are most often followed by content marketers? And here SEMrush, which prepared a list of the most common metrics, comes again with some valuable data. It turns out that marketers usually measure organic traffic (76%), followed by the numbers of leads generated (62%), <b?sessions (60%), and conversion rate (47%). The least popular metrics of content strategies are ROI (25%), backlinks (22%), and comments (19%).
6. Do Customers Value Custom Content?
Are you still wondering if you really need custom content and if you can benefit from it at all? Demand Metric prepared some interesting facts and stats about the customers’ behavior and their attitude towards brands delivering high-quality content:
- 60% of customers want to read the content of brands they like and follow,
- 82% of customers feel a positive attitude towards a given brand after reading its custom content,
- thanks to content marketing, 70% of customers feel much closer to a brand,
- 90% of customers declare that custom content is useful,
- 60% of customers are more willing to seek out a product once they have read content about it.
It turns out that customers actually value good content and it contributes primarily to brand recognition and loyalty.
7. Which Content Marketing Tactics Are the Most Effective?
When you plan content marketing strategies, you have plenty of great tactics, more or less effective, to follow. Which of them are worth choosing? This question was asked by SEMrush specialists to content marketers.
As it turns out (which is not surprising for me at all), the most effective content marketing tactic is search engine optimization (67%). Marketers note that if the content doesn’t appear in the search results, practically no one will find it. That means their work will be worth nothing. The second valued tactic is updating existing content (51%). Let’s face it, content often becomes out of date (unless you create evergreen content) and if, for example, you’re writing a piece of content about trends in 2019, it’s worth updating it one year later. This way users (and Google crawlers as well) will get the feeling that your content is fresh and up-to-date.
What other tactics are appreciated by content marketers? These are, above all: creating more visual content (37%), publishing more educational content (36%), optimizing the customer journey (35%), and analyzing competitors’ content (32%).
8. What Are the Most Popular Content Distribution Channels?
If you are creating content, you need to distribute it well so that as many users as possible can find out about it and reach it. And which content distribution channels, according to marketers, are the most effective and most frequently chosen by them? HubSpot attempted to find an answer to this.
It turns out that Facebook is still the most popular platform to distribute content. Other commonly chosen social media channels are Instagram, YouTube ( perfect for sharing video content), and LinkedIn. What’s interesting, Twitter or Pinterest didn’t appear on this list. It is worth noting that a company website is still a great place to distribute content.
9. Should You Optimize Your Content for Mobile Devices?
Mobile devices generate massive web traffic worldwide… That’s a fact! So what do you think – do your customers/readers see your content on mobile devices? Or maybe desktops are still invincible? Well, it turns out that it depends on the industry – in some of them, mobile devices contribute more to generating blog traffic, in others not so much.
In these industries, mobile devices really matter:
- jewelry (56.74%),
- travel (50.35%),
- home and garden (46.73%).
In these industries, desktops still dominate:
- online education (79.96%),
- marketing (83.63%),
- automotive dealerships (62.71%).
If you want to find out how to optimize your website for mobile devices, read my mobile SEO guide.
10. What Are the Latest Trends in Content Marketing?
Content marketing is evolving dynamically! This is also driven by technological development and the introduction of such features as voice search, live videos, or augmented reality. Would you like to find out if users really value these features? Here are some statistics that will show you that it is worth following the latest trends to create top-notch content.
Voice Search
- In 2018, 78% of users between 18 and 28 years old used voice search.
- 31% of smartphone users all over the world use voice search at least once a week.
- 55% of teenagers use voice search every day.
Live Videos
- The average viewing time of live streaming is 4 minutes.
- 28% of users around the globe are watching more live videos since the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 63% of users between 18 and 34 years old regularly watch live videos.
- Smartphone users spend more time watching live videos than desktop users.
Augmented Reality
- Augmented reality increases buyer confidence – 71% of customers say they would shop more often if brands used augmented reality.
- Customers use augmented reality more often – 32% of them use AR when shopping.
- 70% of users between 16 and 44 are aware of what augmented reality is.
Conclusions
Content marketing is the future! More and more marketers prepare great content marketing strategies to increase brand awareness and recognition, to generate leads, and to improve conversion rate and revenue. If you also notice the power of content and want to create something great, then you have a really broad range of different tactics, content types, and distribution channels to use. I hope that thanks to these content marketing stats and facts you will see that content is powerful!
If you are looking for content marketing specialists who will prepare long-term effective strategies for your brand, based on expert knowledge about search engine optimization, feel free to contact us. Our specialists will be happy to help!
Or maybe you know some interesting content marketing strategies you would like to share? Let me know in your comments!
Great insights! Interesting that editing skills are so low when it comes to the most desired skills for content creation. I’d say that editing a block of text properly is quite important – people don’t like and won’t consume badly prepared content.
Totally agree, the editorial part is super important to keep the audience on the website, with the content.