76 Percent of B2B Marketers Plan to Produce More Content Than They Did Last Year

No matter what area of modern marketing you look at when reviewing the year that was 2015, you will find growth, relevance and efficiency. Content marketing is no different.

More Content

Several of the global experts we talked to focused on the same statistic from the Content Marketing Institute. 70% of B2B marketers plan on producing more content over the next 12 months.

And since these interviews were done in the late summer, this statistic was looking at content marketing heading in to 2015. The latest research shows that this number has increased to 76%. That means more than three-fourths of B2B marketers plan to create more content than they did last year (when only 70% made that statement).

Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute, says that this indicates that modern marketing continues to be more about publishing than marketing. Although many have yet to formulate a documented strategy, it's clear that the future of marketing success is rooted in building loyal audiences that know, like and trust us, which we do through consistent delivery of valuable content.

Yoav Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Uberflip, thinks it is a great sign that content marketing adoption continues to rise. But as more content is produced, more effort will be required to properly leverage that content to meet business objectives.

Doug Kessler, Co-founder and Creative Director of Velocity, sums it up by acknowledging that this sucker has gone mainstream. The bar is higher, wider and heavier. We're all going to need better poles to vault it.

More Relevant Content

But just because marketers are creating more content, it doesn't mean that content is connecting with customers and prospects.

Jason Miller, Senior Content Marketing Manager at LinkedIn, points out that the inefficiency in content production results in an estimated $958 million each year in excessive spend for mid-to-large B2B companies. The focus on more content instead of more relevant content is leading to a tremendous amount of marketing assets that are underutilized or even worse, go completely unused. Marketers need to focus on more data driven decisions and ask themselves, do I create this damn piece of content or not?

More Efficient Content

And finally, keep your goals in mind. If content marketing is not serving the larger goals of the business in a meaningful and measurable way, it will not be used.

Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group and Head of Strategy at NewsCred, reveals that 60-70% of the content created in most marketing organizations goes completely unused. In 2015, when so much of our marketing activities and investments can be tracked and measured, this data point goes to the content problem inside every brand. Leading companies are investing in the programs and skills that deliver effective customer-based content marketing with a real return.

Did you see these same trends in 2015 or do you have your own thoughts about the growth of content marketing over the past year? Let us know on Twitter using #MMInsights.

To read what global marketing experts think will have the most impact across all areas of modern marketing in 2016 download The Future of Modern Marketing: 2016.