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50 Crucial Content Facts to Make Your Content Make a Difference Now
A collection of revealing content facts, statistics, and quotes to shape your content vision and strategy.
Content Consumption
There are more than 3.77 billion internet users worldwide – about 50% of the world’s population. —Hootsuite
21% of Americans now report that they go online “almost constantly.” — Pew Research
Online sales in China amounted to $581.61 billion in 2015, surging 33.3% from the previous year, and are expected to grow 20% annually by 2020. — Forbes
69% of all adults have at least one social media site, while 86% of adults ages 18-29 utilize some sort of social media. — Pew Research Center
Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019.— Forbes
68% of adults in the U.S. use Facebook, while 28% use Instagram, 26% use Pinterest, 25% use LinkedIn, and 21% use Twitter. — Pew Research Center
40% of the world’s population are active social media users, and 2.7 billion – or 37% – are strictly mobile users. —Hootsuite
Only 29% of people want to talk to a salesperson to learn more about a product, while 62% will consult a search engine. — Hubspot
47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep.—Demand Gen Report
Content Vision + Leadership
18% of content users report “doing nothing” after viewing content, 35% conduct more research, and 17% share, ContentWRX data shows.
“Companies connect with customers through all types of channels — email, TV, direct mail, social media, etc. — and in leveraging all of or a few of these, one key component is having effective content.” —Drew Bailey, FedEx
87% of 101 survey respondents said a content leader who provides vision, direction, and inspiration is critical to a content team’s success. — Content Science, Content Leadership Study
Global spending on content marketing is predicted to hit $300 billion worldwide by 2020, more than doubling its 2016 total of $145 billion. — PQ Media
B2B marketers have increased their content marketing budget from 25% to 32%, while B2B marketers have allocated 28% two years running. However, the most effective B2B marketing teams allocate 42%. — B2B Content Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends
“Change, adapt, and survive. Or don’t. There’s no middle ground. That’s true whether you’re leading a content team, a Fortune 500 enterprise, a small business, or anything in between.” —Cory Bennett, AT&T
81% of survey respondents reported an environment that encourages creativity and innovation as very important or critical to a content team’s success. — Content Science, Content Leadership Study
“If your organization is serious about maturing your content capacity and practice, you will need content leadership at individual, team, and corporate levels.” — Colleen Jones
Content Teams
“When we started [our content] inventory, we discovered that almost every part of the organization was playing a role in content creation: marketing, sales, developer communities, technical documentation, training, support, services. We ran into content-related roles and teams we had no idea existed. A lot of the work had to do with finding out who was doing what, and putting them in contact with each other.” — Marie Girard, IBM
“What was helpful for us was to sit down with other content teams and walk through the data in as much of an objective framework as possible and go through the external and objective reporting that comes from ContentWRX and other tools to see how we might solve 1 or 100 content issues.” — Kelley Graham, American Cancer Society
73% of respondents reported that content team members are motivated by opportunities to grow and develop. — Content Science, Content Leadership Study
48.6% of leaders who have communicated their vision indicated their content operations are very or extremely successful, while just 8.9% of leaders who have not communicated their vision reported these levels of success. —Content Science, Content Operations + Leadership Study
Employees at Starbucks, IBM, Reebok, and Dell are encouraged to speak on behalf of the brand to vendors and customers. And this is smart business according to the 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer, showing people trust employees more than CEOs.
56% of 101 content team members surveyed say ambiguous goals and micromanagement cause them to become disengaged. — Content Science, Content Leadership Study
62.5% of content leaders and teams do not regularly evaluate or measure content effectiveness and success.—Content Science, Content Operations + Leadership Study
“Four key roles are key to maturing your content capacity: Content strategist, content designer, content engineer, and content analyst.”
— Colleen Jones
Only 27% of content team members surveyed said their rate of creating content was how they gauged success. — Content Science, Content Leadership Study
Content Intelligence + ROI
“If you have important content questions your data isn’t telling you (and you likely do in the engagement category), work with your IT and web teams to put the correct infrastructure in place.” — Mike Barton, Adobe
“Our data-focused and collaborative approach resulted in far less escalations and emotional pleas from our stakeholders and demonstrated that we were not reducing content just to reach a target, but rather to change the culture for how we execute marketing.” — Scott Rosenberg, Intel
62% of companies said a lack of standardized content strategies across their organization prevents them from achieving the level of Content Maturity they desire. —Content Science, Content Leadership Study
IBM notes 80% of all data is unstructured—text and even numbers that are not in a data model.
Inc. shares 70% of internet users want to learn about products through content versus through traditional advertisements, and Swift Networks reveals 79% think the mobile content and ads they see from retailers are irrelevant.
Revenue for global content marketing rose 13.3% in 2014 to $26.47 billion and are expected to rise to $54.25 billion by 2019. — PQ Media
Only 35% of content teams surveyed said they evaluate content ROI. — Content Science, Content Leadership Study
70% of marketers lack a consistent or integrated content strategy. — Curata
Content Channels
Deloitte Global predicts that virtual reality (VR) will have its first billion dollar year in 2016, with about $700 million in hardware sales, and the remainder from content.
The average ContentWRX score rose 7.45% on mobile/tablet in 2016, indicating mobile content experiences are improving.
88% of consumers who search for a type of local business on a mobile device call or go to that business within 24 hours. — AppSheet
75% of in-store shoppers use mobile devices while shopping, and as many as 25% of shoppers use mobile devices to make purchases while in-store. — Adweek
94% of companies in the Inc. 500 have a LinkedIn account, 88% have a Facebook account and 79% have Twitter accounts, while 97% of Fortune 500 companies have a LinkedIn. — UMass Dartmouth
89% of consumers report simultaneous use of the TV and smartphone. — Deloitte
Consumers check their smartphone a combined 9 billion times per day. — Deloitte
Content Technology
80% of large companies report having a Chief Marketing Technologist role, states ChiefMarTec.com. Organizations with CMTs or equivalent positions are generally ahead of their peers in digital marketing maturity, Gartner reported.
By 2020, 50 percent of companies will use cognitive computing to automate marketing and sales interactions with customers, reports IDC Research.
Sales and marketing alignment can improve sales efforts at closing deals by 67% and help marketing generate 209% more value from their efforts. — Marketo
Only 10% of respondents to an Altimeter Group survey said their content tools integrate with other functions.
Companies who fully invest in modern personalization will outsell their competitors by 20%. — Forrester
Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. — Nucleus Research
82% of marketing departments lack the data framework to unify technologies. — CMO Council and Tealium
The number of apps in the Apple App Store is expected to reach 5 million apps by 2020, while the average user only uses 27 per month.
Personalizing even a single aspect of the customer experience takes sustained investments in customer data and analytics—including spending on data management and analytic tools. — Gartner
“With the growing use of voice-activated systems, ‘conversational’ content design will also become increasingly important.” — Joseph Dickerson, Microsoft
Companies who put data-driven personalization at the center of marketing and sales decisions improve ROI by 15-20% or more. — McKinsey
Source for All Content Facts: Content Science Review
