B2C Content Marketing Improving, But Strategy, Patience Still in Short Supply

Content Marketing Institute Releases New Research on State of Business-to-Consumer Content Marketing in North America

Content Marketing Institute Releases New Research on State of Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Content Marketing in North America (Graphic: Business Wire)

CLEVELAND--()--While B2C marketers are more successful with their content marketing this year compared with one year ago, many still need to give their content marketing efforts more time. That’s one of the key findings in the just published 2017 B2C content marketing research report from Content Marketing Institute, a UBM company, and MarketingProfs. This is the fifth year for the highly anticipated B2C Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report, which is sponsored by Hightail.

To see our analysis and download the full report visit: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/10/research-b2c-content-marketing

What did we find?

63% of B2C marketers consider their organization’s overall approach to content marketing to be much more or somewhat more successful than one year ago.

But 23% of B2C marketers said their overall success was about the same as one year ago. The top two reasons they cited are strategy issues (49%) and not enough time devoted to content marketing (48%).

“Too often, marketers expect quick results from content marketing, but it simply doesn’t work that way. Patience is often a missing, yet crucial, ingredient if you want to be successful, ” explains Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute and author of four content marketing books, including Content Inc. “Organizations need to be committed to content marketing- for the long haul- and give it enough time, if they’re going to see results and be able to demonstrate ROI. It can take 12-24 months to get those results.”

Other Key Highlights:

  • B2C marketers who reported that their organizations are more successful with content marketing compared with one year ago attribute it to doing a better job with content creation (77%) and developing or adjusting their content marketing strategy (71%).
  • 40% of B2C marketers have a documented content marketing strategy.
  • 69% of B2C marketers agree that their organization is realistic about what content marketing can achieve.
  • 78% of B2C marketers agree that they/their team can demonstrate, with metrics, how content marketing has increased audience engagement.

“While content marketers in the B2C space face some challenges, it’s great to see that 77% of those who reported increased success over the last year attribute that success to doing a better job with content creation,” says Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs, and author of two books, including Everybody Writes, a Wall Street Journal bestseller. “As long as they remain committed to creating quality content versus just churning out poor or mediocre content just for the sake of having produced content, they can be successful.”

The B2C Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report reflects the findings from 480 North American B2C marketers from diverse industries and a wide range of company sizes. This year we redesigned the survey, asking new questions and changing other questions, to help get clearer insights into the successes and challenges content marketers face.

For research charts, quotes and more, check out this Hightail space: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/T8QC8.

To view all CMI research and to subscribe to our emails visit: contentmarketinginstitutecom/research.

About Content Marketing Institute:

Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest content marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and the Intelligent Content Conference event is held every spring. CMI publishes the bi-monthly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. Watch this video to learn more about CMI, a UBM company. To view all research and to subscribe to our emails visit www.contentmarketinginstitute.com.

About MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs offers real-world education for modern marketers. More than 600,000 marketing professionals worldwide rely on our free daily publications, virtual conferences, MarketingProfs University, and more to stay up to date on the most important trends and tactics in marketing—and how to apply them to their businesses. Visit MarketingProfs.com for more.

Contacts

Content Marketing Institute
Amanda Subler, 216-941-5842
amanda@contentinstitute.com

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Contacts

Content Marketing Institute
Amanda Subler, 216-941-5842
amanda@contentinstitute.com