Although content marketing is picking up the reins, it’s still often the first thing to go when budgets tighten. It can be seen as, pinning profits on words instead of numbers. But, we would argue that it’s more than just a ‘nice to have’; content marketing is essential for business success, regardless of the company’s size. Content is the driving force behind your community and your conversations.

Don’t believe us? We selected some of our favourite content marketing reports to back this up with cold, hard statistics.

Where is your audience?

Most content marketing takes place online these days, reflecting the shift in consumer behaviour. Your job is to meet them where they are at, helping any potential customer to navigate the ‘messy middle.’

In Australia, 86.5% of the population access the internet at least once a month (this figure is only expected to grow). We are online for at least 3 hours each day – inevitably, most office and WFH workers are far exceeding that. So, they are searching, reading, browsing, and also spending significant time on social media platforms.

According to this post, there are 18 million active Australian Facebook users accessing the platform each month – 50% log on at least once a day. YouTube boasts 17.5 million unique visitors monthly, while Instagram counts 10 million active users and LinkedIn accounts 6.5 million.

The power of content marketing

Business blogs are always important: they inform, educate, inspire, engage and drive traffic to your website. (Read more about the reasons why here). Outside of blogs, content marketing consists of a multitude from videos and infographics to email newsletters and social media.

Don’t sleep on these stats from DemandMetric:

• 70% of those surveyed would prefer to learn about a company through an article instead of an advertisement
• 60% of customers actually enjoy reading relevant content from brands
• 82% feel more positively towards a company after reading their custom content
• 70% feel closer to a company as a result
• 90% find this custom content useful
• Interesting content is also one of the main reasons to follow a business on social media

Content marketing’s effect on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

A robust business blog doesn’t just help entertain and educate your customers – both existing and new – but it also has a strong influence on your search engine rankings. With fierce competition and limited consumer time, it’s critical to appear at the top of the search results.

What does a blog have to do with search engine results? Find out more here.

A recent study from Chitika found that the first Google search result receives 34% of the traffic, which equates to more than that of positions 2, 3, 4 and 5 combined. Placement truly does make all the difference.

Additionally, there is an incredible loss of traffic between pages 1 and 2 of the results. Most users don’t bother clicking to the next page, and, following a rise in the rankings from position 11 to 10, traffic jumped by 143%.

The importance of video marketing

With so many users on YouTube, plus the video tools on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram, video marketing is a no-brainer. Visual content is easily consumable, and importantly, it’s what your customers want. As Wyzowl found, we watch an average of 19 hours of video per week and are twice as likely to share this type of content with others.

Here are some other interesting facts they uncovered:

• 73% of those surveyed said they would prefer to learn about a product service through video (11% responded with a blog post or article)
• 82% of businesses surveyed say video has helped increase dwell time, while 86% say it has helped generate new leads, and 81% say it directly increased sales
• 88% of customers have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a video

Get your content strategy right to maximise the benefits. Chat with the experts at RealClicks and let your content flourish – and do the hard work for you.