Marketers should heed rapper Notorious B.I.G.’s advice: Relax and take notes. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), marketers who take the time to document their content marketing strategy are more effective than those who don’t.
CMI and MarketingProfs published “B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America,” which concludes the following: A verbal strategy is a good starting point, but exerting the time and effort to document the strategy is imperative in taking the next step.
“This research is incredibly important so that savvy marketers can benchmark their content marketing strategy, processes, and budgets against their peer group,” says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the CMI. “Content marketing has been around for over a hundred years, but it’s an immature industry. Marketers need as much reference information as possible so the industry can continue to grow.”
There are two factors that separate the “good from the great” content marketers—boasting a documented content marketing strategy and following it to a tee. Of the 83% of B2B marketers who have a content marketing strategy, only 35% have it documented. What’s more, 14% of respondents don’t have a strategy at all, and 3% are unsure whether they do.
Marketers who jot down their strategy also rate themselves eight times more effective than those who operate sans strategy and consider themselves less challenged with every facet of content marketing.
Finally, only 21% of respondents can successfully track their content marketing program’s ROI, while the number balloons to 35% for marketers with a documented strategy.
