To help our European readers benchmark themselves against their peers and get some indication on what to focus on in 2014, we dove into some hard data on the state of content marketing. We joined forces withSmart Insights and surveyed over 2,600 marketers across Europe to see what they've been up to, where they've been struggling with content marketing, and what their plans are for 2014.
We compiled all of that data into this SlideShare below so you can clearly see what has been going on in the world of content marketing and what that'll mean for your next year in marketing. In addition to the SlideShare, be sure to check out insights on European content marketing below and share the most helpful with your followers.
9 Revealing Insights About Content Marketing in Europe
1) Marketers are struggling with content adoption within their companies.
71% of European companies' adoption of content marketing has been inconsistent or poor. (Tweet this stat)
2) The majority of marketers are only spending a small portion of their budget on content marketing.
49% of marketers in Europe spend between 0-20% of their marketing budget on content marketing. (Tweet this stat)
3) Marketers are investing their budget in creating an internal content team versus using external resources.
55% of European marketers are increasing their spend on internal headcount in 2014. (Tweet this stat)
40% of European marketers are increasing investment in external content creation this year. (Tweet this stat)
4) Marketers are focusing their budget on creating an inbound machine to help promote their content.
69% of European marketers are increasing their investment in promoting their content through earned media such as social media and public relations. (Tweet this stat)
5) Marketers recognize how effective content marketing can be in helping them achieve their business goals.
49% of European marketers have seen a return on their investment in content marketing. (Tweet this stat)
6) Creating and implementing a content strategy is pivotal to success in content marketing.
58% of European marketers found their content to be much more effective with a content strategy in place. (Tweet this stat)
7) Content marketing works very well for lead generation and customer acquisition.
42% of European marketers have generated leads or customers through blogging. (Tweet this stat)
8) European marketers are struggling to measure the ROI of their content marketing.
45% of European marketers cited measuring ROI and producing enough quality content as their top challenges. (Tweet this stat)
9) Developing a content strategy is a top priority for 2014.
56% of European marketers don’t have any kind of defined content strategy in place yet. (Tweet this stat)
58% of European marketers rated having a content strategy as a top priority for 2014. (Tweet this stat)
69% of European marketers rated content promotion as their top priority for this year. (Tweet this stat)
What are some of the global trends you foresee for content marketing this year? Feel free to share your views in the comments!
Written by Lisa Toner
Lisa is an inbound marketing content creator in HubSpot’s Dublin office. Reach out to her on Twitter at @LisaToner13
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Inbound Marketing Feed
Franz Zauner
Hi Lisa, this is Franz, an Austrian working in Germany. It´s great you are offering this Benchmark Report.
But ... what´s an "European Marketer" ?????? There are so many different countries and the Trends in Germany are not the same as in the UK or Italy or Sweden, I think. It would be very helpful to have data for every single country. Kind regards, Franz
Txell
That's an excellent question, Franz! So important to know where the answers come from...
Rick Roberge
Franz, you sound like a Boston Red Sox fan when they get compared to New York Yankee fans. No comparison! I thought that you might be interested in this article, just published today in Australia. http://www.brightinbound.com.au/inbound-marketing-blog/bid/99424/Can-Australians-Learn-Inbound-Marketing-Faster-Than-Americans-Did
Davonne Schaefer
As a native Bostonian now living in Munich, I really enjoy seeing benchmarks reports from HubSpot focusing on the European market!
One of the main topics I’m stressing to my clients this year is to create buying personas and segmented content for their database. Not all contacts are alike nor are they at the same point in their sales cycle; they have different needs and challenges and need to be individually targeted.
Inken
Hi Franz,
Ich stimme dir zu, dass die Situation in Deutschland noch ganz anders aussieht. Es ist einfach noch schwer zu diesem Thema eine repräsentative Umfrage für jedes Land durchzuführen. Wirf doch bei Gelegenheit einfach mal einen Blick auf unseren deutschen Blog. http://de.hubspot.com/blog Viele Grüße, Inken
Scott Yates from BlogMutt, the blog writing service
We have a bunch of customers from Europe. If you don't have a native English speaker on staff, it can be really hard to create content in English to sell into the US market, so that's why they turn to us.
And I would imagine work in other languages is so early stage, that any effort at all would help a ton! (Or should I say... a tonne! ;-)
John
Interesting post.
Whether here or abroad, effective inbound strategies begin by understanding the wants and needs of customer. Others might disagree or find this over simplified, but to me Inbound Marketing has two bookends, Content and Context. Content is about establishing authority and building belief. Context is about relevance. The key is getting down to what's important to the customer and delivering that message to where they 'live'. Of course working with HubSpot in order to manage such engagement is a step in the right direction. (yes, an unsolicited plug)