35 Content Marketing Stats You Need to Know

Content marketers are junkies for concise and compelling stats.

It’s easy to see why. Content marketers are constantly trying to sell clients and colleagues on why they should become publishers, even though it’s often a stark departure from the way they’re used to doing things. And since content marketing is such a new and rapidly changing discipline, quick-hitting stats help them feel like they’re riding this wave of change.

So let’s take a look at 35 stats you need to know:

State of content marketing:

1. 72% of B2C marketers are producing more content than they were one year ago. —Content Marketing Institute (Tweet this.)

2. 58% of marketers said “original written content” is the most important type of content, outdoing visuals and videos. —Social Media Examiner (Tweet this.)

3. 90% of B2C marketers leverage content marketing. —Content Marketing Institute (Tweet this.)

4. On average, content marketers shoot for this division of content: 61% created, 27% curated, 12% syndicated. —Curata (Tweet this.)

5. A significant 92% of marketers said that social media was important to their businesses. —Social Media Examiner (Tweet this.)

6. 60% of the most effective B2C marketers have a documented content strategy. —Content Marketing Institute (Tweet this.)

Trends:

7. Most respondents, or 71%, will increase their 2014 content marketing investment “without a doubt.” —Curata (Tweet this.)

8. Almost 60% of marketers reuse content two to five times. They generate “snackable” content based on assets. —LookBookHQ (Tweet this.)

9. 50% of respondents expressed a desire to be able to measure how much real attention people are paying to their content. —Contently (Tweet this.)

10. Nearly half, or 49%, of marketers are learning to drive content to align with the buyer’s journey. —LookBookHQ (Tweet this.)

11. The lion’s share of marketers, 81%, plan to increase their use of original written content. —Social Media Examiner (Tweet this.)

12. Last year, infographic usage grew from 9% to 52%. —Demand Gen (Tweet this.)

13. 28% of marketers want to learn more about the art of podcasting. —Social Media Examiner (Tweet this.)

14. LinkedIn usage jumped 20% this year among B2C marketers. —Content Marketing Institute (Tweet this.)

15. 33% of marketers average 2 to 5 blogs a month. —LookBookHQ (Tweet this.)

16. Content reading on mobile phones increased over 10% in 2014. —Demand Gen (Tweet this.)

17. 29% of marketers generate multiple assets a week. —LookBookHQ (Tweet this.)

18. 73% of marketers identified brand awareness as a goal of their content. —Contently (Tweet this.)

Challenges:

19. 54% of readers don’t trust sponsored content. —Contently (Tweet this.)

20. Identifying content production is the biggest challenge for 44% of marketers. —LookBookHQ (Tweet this.)

21. Two-thirds have felt deceived upon realizing that an article or video was sponsored by a brand. —Contently (Tweet this.)

22. 57% of readers said that they’d prefer that their favorite blogs and news sites run banner ads instead of sponsored articles. —Contently (Tweet this.)

23. Only about a third of B2C marketers consider themselves effective at content marketing. —Content Marketing Institute (Tweet this.)

24. Only 24% of readers scroll down on native content, compared to 71% who scroll down on original content. —Contently (Tweet this.)

How marketers are measuring their content:

25. 56% of marketers are leveraging software to “manage their content workflow and distribution.” —Curata (Tweet this.)

26. 69% of marketers are using pageviews or unique visitors to measure the success of their content, while less than half are examining time on site. —Contently (Tweet this.)

27. A majority of marketers, 68%, evaluate their social media activities. —Social Media Examiner (Tweet this.)

28. 90% of marketers expressed some level of uncertainty “that their key content metrics are effective in measuring business results.” —Contently (Tweet this.)

29. B2C marketers use an average of 12 content marketing tactics at once. —Content Marketing Institute (Tweet this.)

30. Only 7% of respondents are not measuring the success of their content at all. —Contently (Tweet this.)

Loose ends to keep in mind:

31. The average human attention span is shorter than a goldfish’s: 8 seconds. —Static Brain (Tweet this.)

32. 74% of adults use social network sites. —PewResearch (Tweet this.)

33. Photo posts make up 87% of Facebook page interactions. —eMarketer (Tweet this.)

34. Only 4% of pageviews hold readers for 10 minutes or more. —Static Brain (Tweet this.)

35. 53% of consumers who tweet to brands expect a response within an hour. —Lithium (Tweet this.)