Do you or your marketing team have a content strategy that’s executed consistently? Or do you “wing it,” by putting out content only when you have a new release or special promotion coming up?
Both approaches can work, but the former gets better results.
To maximize the impact of your content strategy, you need clarity on what key marketing channels you have, what people will create engaging content that resonates with customers, and how to deliver your messaging in the best way.
Here are 10 stats on how to develop and execute a content strategy to spice up what you’re already doing or help you emulate the success of top businesses.
56% of marketers are using content marketing-specific software to manage their content workflow and distribution.
Using a specific software to manage content strategy can really help get things out the door on time with less headaches. With software, you can organize content assignments, distribution dates, social media roll-out, and tasks. Choose a tool that works for your business and team.
86% of highly effective organizations have someone in charge of content strategy.
Content strategy takes a team to execute, but needs someone at the helm steering the ship. With input from the CEO, marketing, PR and other departments to consider, it’s essential to have someone in place who can streamline all that input and make sure content strategy, tactics and objectives are relevant, clear, reasonable and measurable.
The top three most widely adopted content marketing tactics: videos (87%), website articles (86%), and in-person events (85%).
If you want to keep up with or surpass the competition, build a content strategy that includes video, web articles and in-person events. All of these content marketing tactics are easy to share online and inspire social sharing on various platforms. Don’t forget to also feature the type of content your customers (or potential customers) relate to in places they can easily find it.>
Marketers’ top investment areas across the content marketing space: Curation & Aggregation (38%); Creation (34%); Workflow (29%).
Any effective content strategy needs a blend of content investment. When a company is only promoting themselves it can seem like a 24 hour commercial. It also takes a lot of time and energy to consistently create fresh content. Throwing content curation and aggregation into the strategy mix enables you to share valuable industry information and be seen as a leader in your field.
B2B content marketing social media platform usage: LinkedIn (94%); Twitter (88%); Facebook (84%); YouTube (72%); Google+ (64%); SlideShare (41%).
Social media strategy is a key part of successful content strategy execution. Knowing where your customers and peers hang out makes it easy to share content in a timely way and develop more accurate metrics to build marketing campaigns.
B2B marketers publish new content: Daily (16%); Multiple Times per Week (26%); Weekly (17%); Multiple Times per Month (19%).
An effective content strategy hinges on how often you publish and share new content, and it definitely takes a bit of finesse. Be careful not to overload people with direct marketing and new content just to get something out the door. It’s better to create quality content that has a clear message and supports a specific marketing goal.
63% of survey respondents indicate the ability to set measurable objectives for each of their campaigns is the biggest value driver of marketing automation.
Marketing automation is no longer a nice to have, it’s a need to have and helps businesses take advantage of the 24 hour marketing cycle worldwide. The important part is creating content with purpose that also ties into a specific goal that’s measurable. This way you can see what resonates with your target market and adjust the content strategy as needed.
B2B marketers cite web traffic (63%) and sales lead quality (54%) as their top content marketing metrics.
How you create and value metrics is a key component of a content strategy because it dictates the type of content you create and how you share it. Get clear on the behavior of your target market and then use those insights to shape the basics of your content strategy like content type, delivery mechanism and timing.
Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.
One of the biggest benefits of a clear content strategy is that it can do the heavy lifting when it comes to lead nurturing. Well-written engaging content delivered consistently through an automated, timed strategy helps businesses reach the essential number of “touch-points” needed to connect with a prospect and turn them into a qualified lead.
The more you fine-tune the content and execution of a content strategy, the easier it will be to connect with customers in a way that is meaningful to them.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: 10 Stats on How Top Businesses Execute Content Strategy
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