10Fold Survey Reveals Dramatic Year-Over-Year Increase in Marketing Content

International study finds marketing execs prioritize social and video content and nearly 30% publish content daily

10Fold, a leading integrated communications agency, announced the availability of a new report: The Role of Content in 2022 for Tech Marketing, which revealed that 76% of companies are at least doubling their content development efforts year-over-year, and nearly 30% of companies are producing three to five times more content than in 2021. The report, based on an international survey conducted in the summer of 2022, highlighted that marketing executives ranked social media and video as their most effective content.

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“The data is clear: content is increasing in importance. Especially content delivered in easily consumable formats, such as video and social posts. In highly competitive markets, we will see publishing frequency and content volume continue to accelerate to capture the required attention and engagement of target audiences.”

10Fold partnered with Sapio Research to survey 484 marketing executives with decision-making and budget authority that work for business-to-business (B2B) or B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) technology companies in the United States, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The survey analyzed the type of content these executives prefer, how often companies publish content, how frequently content is delivered and how companies evaluate the content they use to deliver their desired outcomes. Companies with revenue ranging from $1 million to $500 million or more contributed to the survey.

Five Key Takeaways

1. Nearly 30% of all types and sizes of companies build content at least once a day
2. 52% of B2B companies believe that video is most important for sales and marketing initiatives
3. 51% of companies outsource half or more of their content creation to third parties and most consider the quality of the content good to excellent
4. 57% of companies rely on the sales team’s feedback to measure content effectiveness, even more than website CRM tools or analytics
5. Companies with $500M+ revenue seem to use the sales team to measure content effectiveness more often than companies with less revenue that rely almost solely on analytics

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Dramatic Increases in Content Production

The report revealed companies are developing content at a record pace to accelerate business – perhaps to make up for lost revenue from the pandemic. Nearly all respondents reported increasing their volume of content, with a full 74% stating they produce one to two times more content than they did in 2021. Nearly 30% of companies reported they are developing three to five times more content than last year. Not surprisingly, to keep up with this dramatic increase in content development, 92% of respondents secured more budget in 2022.

Not All Content is Created Equal

The results highlighted bigger investments in social media and video content across all categories of respondents. One-third of the respondents ranked research reports, newsletters, case studies, webinars and brochures as most important types of content. More than 25% of the respondents included infographics, animations and blogs as their priority for content. The content used the least (by less than 20% of the respondents) included slide shows, eBooks, contributed articles and white papers.

“Technology companies are understandably pivoting their marketing strategy to accelerate business in a world recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Susan Thomas, CEO of 10Fold. “The data is clear: content is increasing in importance. Especially content delivered in easily consumable formats, such as video and social posts. In highly competitive markets, we will see publishing frequency and content volume continue to accelerate to capture the required attention and engagement of target audiences.”

Third Party Resources Required

With the historic workforce changes over the past two years, securing staff to deliver on these increasing content demands is a challenge that has impacted development. Only 5% of respondents said they create all of their content in-house, highlighting the reliance on third parties. Companies with revenues ranging from $50 million to $500 million, which made up 56% of respondents, outsourced 51% of their content. Companies rank their outsourced resources highly, with 73% of respondents describing third-party content as “above average” or “excellent.”

Measuring Content Success and Content Planning

When respondents were asked how they knew their content was working, most suggested they used Google analytics to track key performance indicators, such as length of stay on key content web pages. Looking at the results by revenue of the company, we found that companies with revenue of $500 million or more rely just as heavily on feedback from the sales team as they rely on analytics. Similarly, when planning content, most companies rely on website analytics and content calendars. However, the largest revenue category also relied on sales feedback to determine content priorities for the future.

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[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]