According to Hubspot’s third The State of Content Marketing Survey 2019, there has been a lot of growth in the content marketing industry since their first survey in 2017. In 2017, “only 6% of marketers felt they knew what a successful marketing campaign really looked like — in 2019, that number has increased to more than a third of marketers.” (Hubspot) This year’s survey highlighted several changes described below.
1. 41% of Marketing Budgets are Spent on Content
This percentage is up from 23% in 2018. Content can encompass several categories. While traditionally content has meant written content, in 2019 content may include written, image, and video content on an array of channels. Additionally, companies are spending money on updating content for better results on new channels such as Voice Search.
2. Content Marketing Ties into Wider Business Goals
In 2018, only 45% of respondents felt their content marketing strategy linked to all other parts of their business. In 2019, that number rose to 89%. This is an interesting find since the number practically doubled in one year. Some of this can be attributed to education, but ROI is the best measure of effectiveness.
3. Social Media Marketing Influence
In 2019, the top social media channel was Twitter with 79%, however, Facebook with 75%, and LinkedIn with 72% were running close behind. Instagram moved up to fourth place with 57%, and YouTube moved to fifth with 52%. Pinterest was in sixth place with a much smaller 20%, although Pinterest is more effective for fashion, home, and wedding categories. With these survey results, marketers may consider changes to their own social media marketing strategies.
4. Written Content is 77% of Content Marketing for 2019
Written content is the basis of content marketing since it is the most comprehensive ways to delineate differences between brands. Changes that Google is making will require that marketers reconfigure their written content with structured data and AMP capabilities. Both of these are coding additions which won’t affect the written content itself. After written content, the next three focuses are SEO–45%, email–42%, and video marketing–42%. Notably, Voice Search is only at 5% even thought it’s growing in use rapidly.
5. Voice Search Offers Iffy ROI So Far
Voice Search is one of the fastest growing channels for marketers, although the survey results show problematic results. 11% of marketers used Voice Search in 2108, but execution is an issue with poor ROI. 62% of users say it’s too soon to tell if Voice Search is effective for them. 58% say they will use Voice Search in 2019.
6. 89% Measure Success with Increases in Website Traffic
There are several ways to measure the effectiveness of content marketing. Website traffic is one of them. 65% use SEO rankings as a measure; 62% use subscriber growth. The other measures include increased sales–51%, higher conversion rate–50%, better sales lead quality–46%, and brand lift–34%. Just a note to say that SEO rankings are not always a good measure, because Voice Search doesn’t affect SERPs.
Industry Differences
Not every industry is equally successful using all types of content marketing types or channels. But this report offers insight in how you can improve or change your own content marketing to better meet the marketplace demands.
