The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) conducted its yearly study and survey of thousands of marketing professionals worldwide. Segmenting by industry, CMI found content marketers in the technology industry proved to be an interesting group – with standout statistics and trends not found in other segments such as B2B marketers.
For instance, the CMI reported that technology marketers are the group most focused on lead generation as a goal. Likewise, the percentage of those who use lead generation as a marketing goal in the technology field rose to 91% this year over 86% from last year.
Technology marketers also moved away from “brand awareness” as a top metric, citing that it is not effective at generating leads. Today the metric that technology content marketers use most, CMI found, is website traffic. CMI states: “…technology marketers are much more focused than their B2B peers are on sales and lead-related metrics.”
For instance, other popular metrics for success are the following:
- Sales Lead Quality, 62%
- Higher Conversion Rates, 61%
- Sales Lead Quantity, 54%
- Sales, 43%
- Time Spent on Website, 42%
In terms of confidence in their marketing programs and the ability to generate ROI, only 24% of technology marketers reported their organizations are effective (this is a slight rise over B2B counterparts who were at 21%). That said, technology marketers appeared to be a bit surer of their programs and organization if they had a documented strategy. Once a written plan is put into place, the percentage of confidence in the marketing organization then rises to 40-percent, according to CMI.
CMI also tracked that technology marketers are striving to create more “engaging content.” Seventy-three percent admitted that better content was their biggest challenges. Other issues that technology marketers are working on include converting website visitors along with a better understanding of their audience. Finally, CMI found that 66% of technology marketers were trying to find better ways to re-purpose content.
“Content marketing is a key element of search engine optimization,” explains Matt Diggity, SEO expert and founder of Diggity Marketing.
Organizationally speaking, CMI found that in technology marketers, compared to their B2B counterparts, report into “demand gen marketing and product marketing.” In enterprise-based technology marketers usually report into product marketing.
Our New York City SEO company learned the impact of content marketing on link-building – quality content engages readers and engaged readers share content with others, further expanding the reach of any article and creating better quality sales leads, with higher conversion potential.