Peter Drucker said: “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.” This succinctly stated truth is the essential requirement for every brand.
Although Peter left us in 2005, I think he would agree the spark that keeps the customer relationship going is relevant content. It’s a fundamental way to create trust by proving you understand what your audience values.
For some more revealing percentages, here are 42 reasons every brand needs a content marketing strategy in 2012.
- 93% of CMO’s plan to use some form of user generated content in their marketing effort this year
- 92% of shoppers have more confidence in information sought online versus a salesperson or some other source
- 90% of all purchase decisions begin on the internet
- 90% of CMO’s participate in an average of 3 or more social media activities
- 84% of brand managers says they use online videos on their brand websites for marketing product and services
- 81% of CMO’s say they plan to track social media activities to revenues in order to determine ROI. However, only 40% actually do.
- 80% of traffic to a web site begins with search query
- 78% of marketers believe content is key to the success of their organization but only 49 have a content strategy in place
- 78% of B2B marketers say generating high quality leads is their top priority
- 77% of search users choose organic over paid search listings
- 74% of consumers rely on social networks to help them make a purchase decision
- 73% of companies now use social media for marketing
- 66% of companies report using online video for brand awareness; 21% for lead generation and 12% for ecommerce/sales
- 66% of marketers says their greatest concern is lead generation; only 17% say it’s brand awareness
- 65% of consumers report a digital brand experience changed their opinion about a product or service
- 62% click a link on the first page of search engine results
- 61% of marketers say they implement a social media strategy for lead generation
- 60% of retailers use customer reviews as a form of content marketing
- 60% of brand managers says they are going to increase spending for online videos in the next 12 months
- 55% of the time people spend on the internet is directly related to content consumption
- 55% of companies use case studies as part of their content marketing strategy
- 51% use a blog for content marketing
- 51% of marketers say they are going to increase content marketing spending within the next 12 months
- 49% of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation from a social network
- 44% of all content shared on internet comes from Facebook
- 43% of companies says they are writing “white papers” and sharing them online as part of their content marketing
- 43%of companies report higher click-through on RSS feeds with reviews than without
- 42% of consumers say, when shopping online, they prefer to look for an answer online
- 40% or Republican and 38% of Democrats use social network sites to become more polictically involved
- Only 38% of consumers say they watch an online video in its entirety
- 32% of consumers now browse or research products at least once a month on mobile devices
- 26% higher conversion results for products when they have product reviews
- 26% of total marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing by B2B marketers
- 25% of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
- Only 21% of branded mobile apps now contain videos. However, 70 of brand manager says they are going to add videos to their mobile apps within the next 12 months
- 14% of B2B marketers say they send e-mails on an opt-out basis; down from 23% a year ago
- Only 2.6% of all brands views occur through off-site embeds of branded videos
- 300 other companies compete with Facebook for content sharing
- 30 minutes is the average that people watch online videos every day
- E-mail providers, such as Yahoo, AOL and Gmail, all use the number of time a consumers hits the “report spam” button as their #1 criteria for sending future e-mails to that consumer
- Companies with over 1000 employees use an average of 9 content marketing tactics
- Companies with under 10 employees use an average of 6 content marketing tactics
Laurence Peter, the educator who developed the Peter Principle said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” The numbers clearly state content marketing is on the rise but, before you jump in, have a content marketing strategy.
NOTE: The facts and statistics in this post all feature studies conducted within the last year. The sources include: Nielsen, eMarketer, comScore, Edelman Digital, BazaarVoice, MediaPost, Webbiquity among others with appreciation.
The number, 42, was deliberately chosen to acknowledge the great work Junta42 and Joe Pulizzi do in content marketing.
In the compilation of the stats, the best infographic I came across on content marketing comes from Marketo and was passed along by Wendy Emerson at business2community.com because a picture is worth 1000 words. It is below.
Will your brand have a content marketing strategy to create and keep customers in 2012?
Brilliant post, Rob. From the big picture to the supporting facts, you nailed it.
Now … with 35 hours of new content loaded to You tube each minute, and tons of clutter on every other social platform … the question becomes how to break through the clutter and create content that is not only seen, but shared.
Thanks Rhonda. There are great content marketing blog out there. I just thought it was worth a post to do a compilation of some of their findings. Glad it was helpful.
Rob
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Agree with Rhonda cutting the clutter is key
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Thanks Ferry. Appreciate the kind words from Indonesia.