Article-at-a-glance:
– Content marketing thrives with a 16.37% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) expected (2022-2027), as 71% of marketers recognize its growing importance for brand storytelling.
– Success hinges on a well-crafted strategy focusing on audience personalization, with a trend towards interactive content, valuing quality over quantity.
– Explore 68 statistics, trends, and benchmarks that you can use for better content marketing activities in 2024.
Content marketing’s pulse is stronger than ever.
Consider this: in the past year alone, a whopping 71% of marketers emphasized its heightened significance to their brands. And why not? It’s the driving force behind digital narratives, shaping brand stories, and sculpting customer journeys.
We have compiled essential content marketing statistics, benchmarks, and trends from leading sources to ensure that your marketing efforts in 2024 hit the goals.
Content Marketing Usage Statistics
The content marketing market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 16.37% between 2022 and 2027. Finding success here means adopting and using content marketing as part of a holistic marketing program.
- The content marketing market is expected to grow by USD 269.24 billion during 2020-2024. [Technavio]
- 93% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing. [Demand Metric]
- Top-performing content marketers are more likely to use content successfully to generate demand/leads, nurture subscribers/audiences/leads, generate sales/revenue, and grow a subscribed audience. [CMI]
Content Marketing Strategy Statistics
But to be truly successful at content marketing, having the right strategy is critical. So, how to create the right content marketing strategy? Here’s what the marketers are saying.
- 40% of B2B content marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. [CMI]
- 70% of content marketers say their organizations integrate content strategy into the overall marketing sales/communication/strategy. [CMI]
- Most marketers said that “researching the audience” was the #1 factor for achieving success in content marketing. This is because creating the right content for the audience is a top challenge for marketers. [CMI]
- Personalization and hyper-segmentation are expected to dominate the content marketing scene. [Kellie Davis on LinkedIn]
- Whether you’re in the B2B or B2C sector, it’s important to humanize your content and storytelling since marketing is all about Business-to-Human (B2H). [Similarweb]
- Interactive content, such as quizzes, embedded links, ROI calculators, and demos, is becoming increasingly popular. [Demand Gen Report]
- Which is more important: Content quantity vs. quality?
Content Budget Statistics
Budgets are the backbone of any content marketing strategy, and understanding how funds are allocated can offer insights into priorities and future trends. Here’s how organizations are channeling their resources towards content marketing.
- 94% of small businesses have plans to boost their marketing spending in 2024. [Taradel]
- 24% of marketers said that content marketing takes up one-fourth or more of the total marketing budget. [CMI]
- 45% of marketers believe that their content marketing budget will increase in 2024. [CMI]
- 80% of content marketers who are successful spend more than 10% of their marketing budgets on content. [Semrush]
- 69% B2B marketers say they would increase their spending on video, followed by thought leadership content (53%), and in-person events (47%). [CMI]
Content Audit Statistics
Content audit: essential, yet often overlooked. It’s the key to gauging your content’s effectiveness and planning ahead for better results. With the right approach, it’s not daunting, but enlightening. Here are some trends and benchmarks for content audits.
- 61% of successful marketers conduct content audits two or more times a year. [Semrush]
- Most marketers consider on-page, off-page, and technical SEO when conducting a content audit. [Databox]
- 53% of marketers say updating their content helped increase engagement while 49% saw an increase in traffic and/or rankings. [Semrush]
Content Team Statistics
People, process, and technology. These are the 3 elements that can successfully drive action, in our case: creating engaging content. Let’s see what’s in store for content teams in 2024.
- 35% of businesses lack specialized content marketing teams. [DemandSage]
- 51% of marketers say that content requests go through a centralized content team in large organizations (100-plus employees). [CMI]
- In light of recent layoffs and budget cuts, companies are leaning towards freelancers for cost efficiency, realizing the competitive edge they bring. Content marketers should leverage them to conveniently scale content creation and with on-demand creative talent. [HubSpot]
- 48% of content marketers want to learn to work with new technologies like AI. [CMI]
Content Production Statistics
The content team can only perform to their full capabilities with a solid content production process in place.
- 31% of marketers say that having “no structured content production process” is one of the big challenges when scaling content production. Other challenges include not enough content repurposing and lack of communication across organizational silos. [CMI]
- The rise of generative AI tools is a double-edged sword. It can help to scale content production but at the same time, produce poor-quality content. The key lies in using AI for automating content processes to free up the team to create humanized content. [CMI]
Content Tools Statistics
Coupled with powerful tools and technology, content teams can take their content marketing activities to the next level.
- 81% of content marketers use analytics tools; 72% use social media publishing/analytics; and 69% use email marketing software to manage their content. [CMI]
- But only 31% of marketers say that they’re using the right tools to manage their content. [CMI]
- 45% say their organization is likely to invest in new technology. [CMI]
Content Format Statistics
You have your team, your processes, and tools. So, what kind of content should you prioritize in 2024 and beyond?
Content – Blogging Statistics
Content marketing used to be synonymous with blogging, but not anymore. Nevertheless, it’s still an important piece of content to create as part of your marketing strategy.
- As of 2023, there are over 600 million blogs online out of 1.9 billion websites worldwide. [Web Tribunal]
- 90% of content marketers leverage websites and blogs the most in their content strategy. [Seige Media & Clearscope]
- Content marketers who blog are 13 times more likely to see a positive ROI than those who don’t. [HubSpot]
- How-to articles are the most popular content for bloggers to write. [WPBeginner]
- People are far more likely to scan than read word for word. At most, they read about 28% of the words on the average web page; 20% is more likely. [Neilsen]
- Posts over 3000 words get 77.2% more referring domain backlinks than content shorter than 1000 words. [Backlinko]
Content – Video Statistics
According to Sprout Social, more than half of marketers say video is the most valuable type of content. And with people watching more videos now than they ever have before, video content is no longer nice-to-have; it’s a must. Here are some essential video content marketing statistics you should know for 2024:
- Videos will account for a whopping 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2025, while video streaming will make up 91% of global internet traffic. [Integral Ad Science]
- 53% of marketers say that case studies/customer stories and videos deliver some of their best results. [CMI]
- 69% of B2B content marketers think that their companies would increase their investment in video. [CMI]
- 40% of marketers said creating more visual, and video content improved their content marketing. [Semrush]
- 97% of marketers said that video helped increase user understanding of their product or service, while 76% said that it helped them increase sales and revenue. [HubSpot]
- Interactive, short-form, live, and vertical videos will become more prevalent in 2024. [Videohaus]
- Users who watch videos without sound will increase in 2024; hence, adding captions is necessary. [SocialInsider]
Content – Podcast Statistics
By 2024, there will be over 109 million U.S. podcast listeners, which demonstrates the tremendous growth that podcasting has experienced. Before you create podcast content as part of your marketing efforts, check out the crucial trends and statistics below.
- Podcast industry in the US is expected to reach $4 billion in 2024. [IAB]
- Marketers in the US spent $1.73 billion on podcasts in 2022, which is forecasted to reach and exceed $2.5 billion by 2024. [Statista]
- 82% of marketers plan on investing the same or more into podcasts or other audio content moving forward. [HubSpot]
- B2B content marketers spend about 4.8 hours to create a podcast episode. [Casted]
Content Distribution Statistics
Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.
Jonathan Perelman of BuzzFeed
- 90% of marketers use social media platforms (organic), followed by blogs (79%), and email newsletters (73%) to distribute content. [CMI]
- More than half of surveyed marketers said that in-person events and webinars are the best distribution channels to get results. [CMI]
- When it comes to paid content distribution channels, 78% use social media advertising/promoted posts. [CMI]
Content Performance Statistics
Creating content alone isn’t enough; you must regularly measure their performance too. This way, you can iterate on your content marketing campaigns and improve their success rate. But one thing is certain when it comes to content marketing ROI: more resources invested in content marketing leads to stronger results over time.
- 72% of the successful marketers measure the ROI of their content marketing. [Insider Intelligence].
- 46% of B2B marketers agree their organization measures content performance effectively. [CMI]
- Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and provides 3x better lead generation. [Demand Metric]
- The top three primary goals of creating content are boosting sales, building relationships with customers, and increasing brand awareness. [Insider Intelligence]
- 73% of marketers use conversions as the most frequently used metric to assess content performance. Other metrics are email engagement (71%), website traffic (71%), website engagement (69%), and social media analytics (65%). [CMI]
Content Optimization Statistics
From time to time, doing regular content optimization can improve your content visibility, engagement, and effectiveness. But it’s not an easy feat since about 45% of marketers said that optimizing content for SEO is one of the biggest challenges of content creation.
- Marketers are optimizing their content for niches — especially the long tail keywords. [DemandSage]
- Use Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) guidelines or topical authority to optimize your content. [Search Engine Land]
See how AmpiFire’s topical authority and media approach elevated a car dealership business with top page 1 rankings and online popularity boost.
AI Content Statistics
2023 is the year of generative AI. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, MidJourney, Google’s Bard and many others can help you quickly create quality content (albeit with some form of training). And as a content marketer, if you’re not already using some form of AI, you’re far behind others.
- 82% of marketers say generative AI has impacted how they plan to create content. [Hubspot]
- 69% of marketers say it is important to their overall content strategy. [Hubspot]
- 76% of marketers using generative AI say they use it for basic content creation and copywriting. [Insider Intelligence]
- 91% use free tools like ChatGPT while about 27% pay for AI tools such as Jasper. [CMI]
- 73% of consumers, on average, trust content written by generative AI tools. [Capgemini]
Unlocking the Power of Content Marketing in 2024
Content marketing remains a crucial pillar in digital storytelling, directly influencing brand perception and customer engagement in 2024 and beyond.
With the industry expanding rapidly, integrating innovative strategies, tools, and a diverse range of content forms is essential.
Harnessing the power of AI, optimizing content, and ensuring a human-centric approach will be pivotal.
Ready to elevate your content marketing game? Book an appointment with our team and see how AmpiFire can unlock the potential of impactful, results-driven content strategies for 2024 and beyond.
