What We Learned from 300 Content Marketers

When you think about marketing, what’s the first thing that comes into your head? Brochures? Print ads? Billboards?

What about blogging?

Content marketing, which includes things like blogging and infographics, is a hot trend in digital marketing and with good reason: it costs 62% less than traditional marketing and can generate up to 3x as many leads. Most marketing agencies (84%) predict content marketing will be even more important in the future. This infographic from CopyPress is based on interviews with 300 content creators, including in-house marketers, agencies, and freelancers. So what do they think about this rapidly growing industry? Let’s take a look and see!

While marketers may recognize this growing trend, that doesn’t mean that their clients do.

• 58% of agency employees didn’t think that their clients knew about content marketing
• Only 5% saw their clients as very knowledgeable about it
• 82% created 1-10 pieces of content per month – only 10% created over 50 pieces per month

When asked to break down the types of content created for clients, agencies reported creating:

• blog posts (92%)
• web copy (70%)
• static infographics (30%)
• interactive media or videos (45%)
• illustrations (16%)

33% of agencies reported that their biggest challenge in content creation was understanding and matching client expectations and 15% cited scaling production to be their biggest obstacle to overcome.

When it comes to in-house marketers, we see roughly the same trends:

• 74% said their companies had 1-4 content marketers on staff; only 17% had over 10
• 39% didn’t think that the company’s efforts were very effective
• 20% of companies spend less on $5000 on content marketing annually and 22% spent between $5000-$15000
• 60% said content marketing was smaller than other channels
• Only 13% published content multiple times per day (43% did it weekly and 35% daily)
• 65% of the respondents wanted to publish more and only 22% were satisfied with how often they posted

While companies aren’t investing in content marketing, they do crave the results it brings:

• 35% wanted better search rankings and visibility
• 43% wanted to increase their revenue and sales
• 13% wanted higher volumes of repeat traffic and to build a loyal community

91% of these companies created their blog posts in-house and 50% created their own product descriptions.

So what about freelancers? Where do they fit in?

• 64% of freelancers work full-time
• 40% work between 21-40 hours per week and 14% work over 40 hours per week
• 67% made under $20,000 as a freelancer last year and 6% earned more than $90,000
• 23% have been in the field for 3-5 years and 24% have over 10 years of experience
• 13% have a high-school diploma or GED, 78% have a college degree, and 28% have at least a master’s degree
• 60% of respondents have a personal blog or website

Freelancers on average tend to be a little more limited in the types of content they create: 94% produce written content (only 4% create infographics or other visual content.)

Hopefully, this infographic gave you a little motivation to put content marketing on your radar for 2017 – or to think about increasing your budget if you’re already onboard!

What do you think is the biggest opportunity in content marketing today? Let me know in the comments!