Marketers, We Have a Problem with Measuring Content Marketing

CLEVELAND, Oct. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketers, along with business-to-business (B2B) and nonprofit content marketers, struggle with effectively tracking their content marketing return on investment (ROI).  That's one of the key findings in the new content marketing research published by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs.

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This is the fifth and biggest year yet for one of the most highly anticipated content marketing research reports in the world: B2C Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-- North America, sponsored by EnVeritas Group. This year we made changes to the survey and asked new questions to get a deeper understanding of how organizations use content as part of the marketing mix.  

"The importance of this annual research cannot be overstated," says Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute and author of Epic Content Marketing. "In many cases, the research can help justify gaining additional budget for content programs, as well as assist in a necessary culture change that needs to happen to help content marketing become infused into the rest of the organization."

Based on responses to one of this year's new survey questions, we found that only 23% of B2C marketers are successful at tracking the ROI of their content marketing program.  In fact, 51% say measuring content effectiveness is a challenge.

So how can marketers be more successful at measuring content marketing effectiveness?  It helps to have a documented content marketing strategy.  Forty-three percent of B2C marketers who have a strategy and write it down, say they are effective at tracking ROI. The research further shows that having a documented strategy helps increase effectiveness in all areas of content marketing.  

Additionally, the survey found 69% of B2C marketers are creating more content than last year.  Also, this year more B2C marketers say they are challenged with finding trained content marketing professionals (32% this year versus 10% last year).  

"As the industry continues to mature, it's becoming more critical to find trained professionals to not only create great content, but also to strategically plan for its development, distribution, and measurement," says Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs, and author of Everybody Writes.

There are many more eye-opening findings in the report here.
You can download the full report here.
For graphics/charts, pictures, quotes and more, you can grab them here.

About Content Marketing Institute (CMI)
Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization. CMI teaches enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multi-channel storytelling. CMI's Content Marketing World event, the largest content marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.  CMI also produces Intelligent Content Conference, Content Marketing Sydney and Content Marketing Singapore. CMI also 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. CMI is a 2012, 2013 and 2014 Inc. 500 company.

About MarketingProfs:
MarketingProfs offers real-world education for modern marketers. More than 640,000 marketing professionals worldwide rely on our free daily publications, virtual conferences, and more to stay up-to-date on the most important trends in marketing—and how to apply them to their business. Visit MarketingProfs.com for more.

SOURCE Content Marketing Institute

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http://contentmarketinginstitute.com