80+ B2B Content Marketing Statistics

by Matt Kenny on December 13, 2022

B2B content marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing in use today. That’s because it isn’t about making a sales pitch; it succeeds because it uses pertinent material to address real challenges and foster buyer relationships over time.

But that’s not to say it’s an easy form of marketing to master, or that it doesn’t present certain challenges in practice. On top of that, content marketing is always evolving, making it necessary to stay on top of the latest trends. Below are more than 80 B2B content marketing statistics to help you do just that.

Are you a believer in content marketing but struggling to make it work for your company? Let us help! Book a call today to talk with us.

B2B Content Marketing Statistics About Company Adoption

32% of B2B organizations most successful at content marketing spend 50% of their total marketing budget on content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
75% of successful B2B marketers expected their content marketing budget to increase over 2021. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
58% of content marketers said their content marketing strategy is moderately or slightly different now vs. pre-pandemic. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
92% of content marketers say their organization views content as a business asset. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
91% of B2B marketers say they use content marketing in their overall strategy. In comparison, 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing. (Demand Metric, 2011)
37% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy, while 38% have a strategy without formal documentation. 62% of B2B organizations that are successful at content marketing have a documented strategy. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
The top two limitations cited by B2B marketers who don’t plan to develop a content marketing strategy are 1) a small team (67%) and 2) a lack of time (44%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
51% of B2B marketers think it has become increasingly difficult over the last year to capture their audience’s attention. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
89% of B2B organizations that are most successful at content marketing say they are extremely/very committed to it. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
39% of marketers say proving the ROI of marketing activities is a top inbound marketing challenge at their organization. (HubSpot, 2022)
27% of marketers say securing enough budget is a top challenge at their organization. (HubSpot, 2022)
Only 18% of content marketers feel their organization has the right technology in place to manage their content marketing efforts. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
54% of the most successful B2B marketers have two or more full-time employees dedicated to content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
45% of content marketers say they have the right tools to manage content marketing efforts, but they aren’t using them to their potential. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
66% of content marketers say they need more education on how to better use technology to manage content as a business asset. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
64% of content marketers say they need more education on how to build a scalable content strategy. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
24% of marketers plan to add messaging apps to their content strategy in the next year. (HubSpot, 2022)
92% of organizations most successful at B2B content marketing say their organization values creativity and craft in content creation and production. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
70% of content marketers have style and brand guidelines in place. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
58% of all B2B marketers said they have a small (or one-person) content marketing team serving the entire organization. (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
72% of B2B marketers always or frequently consider how content impacts the overall experience a person has with their organization. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
60% of content marketers have a content team at their organization. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
70% of B2B marketers always or frequently prioritize delivering quality over quantity. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
67% of B2B marketers always or frequently focus on creating content for their audience vs. their brand. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
61% of B2B marketers always or frequently differentiate content from the competition’s content. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
60% of B2B marketers always or frequently prioritize providing the right content to the right person at the right time. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
58% of B2B marketers say they always or frequently deliver content consistently on a defined, regularly scheduled basis. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
53% of content marketers say they have a formal workflow process for planning, creating, and delivering content. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
41% of B2B marketers say they always or frequently craft content based on specific points of the buyer’s journey. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
70% of B2B organizations most successful at content marketing say the flow of content-creation projects is excellent or very good. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
B2B buyers say prescriptive content that lays out a formula for success is the most popular type of content. (Curata, 2017)
Companies that blog have 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages. (HubSpot, 2022)
53% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. (HubSpot, 2022)
87% of B2B marketers use social media to distribute content. (Demand Metric, 2011)
Social platforms less commonly used for B2B content marketing include SlideShare (19%), Pinterest (12%), Medium (6%), and Snapchat (3%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
Half of all marketers say they outsource content marketing (49%). This number increases to 75% for those working at large companies. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
65% of B2B marketers said their top challenge in outsourcing content marketing was finding partners with adequate topical expertise. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
Video marketers feel that video is a good investment for content marketing strategies; 69% believe video to be the top content marketing-related area of investment for 2022. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
66% of B2B marketers created or used video content in the past 12 months. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
B2B marketers send approximately one email every 25 days. (Sagefrog Marketing Group, 2020)
Nearly one in five email campaigns are not optimized for mobile devices. (Sagefrog Marketing Group, 2020)

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B2B Content Marketing Statistics About The Industry

In 2014, the content marketing services business was expected to jump from 26.5 billion to hit the $50 billion benchmark in 2019. However, it's currently projected to hit $105.28 billion in 2025, demonstrating huge growth. (Grand View Research, 2022)
42% of marketers say proving the ROI of marketing activities is a top inbound marketing priority in the next 12 months. (HubSpot, 2022)
11% of marketers plan to add podcasting to their marketing efforts in the next 12 months. (HubSpot, 2022)
46% of marketers plan to add Facebook video to their content strategy in the next year. (HubSpot, 2022)
48% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their content strategy in the next year. (HubSpot, 2022)
8% of marketers plan to add Medium to their marketing efforts in the next 12 months. (HubSpot, 2022)
The top three digital technologies B2B marketers use to manage content marketing efforts are analytics tools (83%), social media publishing/analytics (80%), and email marketing software (75%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
The top three types of content B2B marketers use for content marketing purposes are short articles less than 3,000 words (90%), videos (66%), and virtual events or webinars (64%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
B2B organizations most successful at content marketing use an average of five formats to distribute content, while the least successful use four. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
The top six social media platforms B2B marketers use for their content marketing efforts are LinkedIn (97%), Twitter (87%), Facebook (86%), YouTube (60%), Instagram (30%), and Google+ (28%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
Video marketing has grown by over 25% from 2020 to 2021 as a key content marketing tactic. 81% of businesses have used video content in 2021. (Wyzowl, 2022)
Successful content marketers keep pace with Google’s search algorithm to win organic search and generate leads. 75% of marketers reported SEO as the most efficient content marketing tactic put in place by their team during 2020. (Semrush, 2021)
The next most successful content creation strategy was updating and repurposing existing content, implemented by 61%. (Semrush, 2021)
45% said research/survey reports are the most valuable content formats and sources when researching B2B purchases. (DemandGenreport, 2021)
For the vast majority, content marketing is on the rise. 66% of B2B marketers with knowledge of their budgeting process—and 75% of the most successful marketing organizations—expected their content marketing spend to increase in 2022. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)

B2B Content Marketing Statistics About Lead Generation

60% of customers consider inquiring and buying a product after reading any kind of content about it. (Demand Metric, 2011)
Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads. (Demand Metric, 2011)
72% say the development or adjustment of strategy is a contributing factor to the increase in their content marketing success. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is a top inbound marketing challenge at their organization. (HubSpot, 2022)
20% of marketers say targeting content for an international audience is a top inbound marketing challenge at their organization. (HubSpot, 2022)
54% of marketers say growing traffic to the company website is a top inbound marketing priority in the next 12 months. (HubSpot, 2022)
Buyers say they will share information in exchange for webinars (79%), white papers (76%), third-party/analyst reports (66%), e-books (63%), and case studies (57%). (Curata, 2017)
Buyers are less willing to exchange information for podcasts and video (each 19%), and infographics (24%). (Curata, 2017)
The top three goals B2B marketers have achieved using content marketing successfully over the past 12 months are creating brand awareness (80%), building credibility/trust with their audience (75%), and educating their audience (70%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2022)
B2B marketers say articles/blog posts, white papers, and videos are the three most valuable content marketing types to move prospects through the sales funnel. (Statista, 2021)
59% of B2B marketers consider blogs to be the most valuable content. (Demand Metric, 2011)
94% of buyers share business content via email. (Curata, 2017)
The top seven types of email B2B organizations use as part of their content marketing efforts are event emails (63%), lead nurturing (51%), monthly newsletters (48%), automated confirmation emails (45%), drip campaigns (45%), promotional emails (42%), and ad hoc newsletters (31%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
55% of B2B buyers around the world find video the most useful type of content. (Isoline, 2019)
Responders consume an average of 4.5 pieces of content before contacting a supplier. (Isoline, 2019)
Videos and webinars are the most likely types of content to be shared (53% and 52%, respectively). (Isoline, 2019)
62% of respondents to the 2021 Content Preferences Survey say they depend more on content for researching and making B2B purchase decisions than they did in 2020. (DemandGenreport, 2021)
53% of surveyed buyers said they typically consume between three and five pieces of content before contacting a salesperson. (Isoline, 2019)
61% of respondents were more likely to share video content. (Isoline, 2019)
64% of B2B marketers included events, webinars, and online courses in their content marketing efforts. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
Virtual events were the top performer: 58% said this produced the best results for their content marketing within the previous 12 months. (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
44% of people are using social media platforms more than before due to the pandemic. (Statista, 2020)
LinkedIn is the organic social media platform used most by B2B marketers for content distribution (93%). Second place goes to Facebook (80%), followed by Twitter (71%). (Content Marketing Institute, 2021)
LinkedIn is also the platform where B2B buyers are most likely to share business-related content (71%). (DemandGenreport, 2021)
Instagram saw a year-on-year increase of nearly 30% in B2B marketing usage. (Sagefrog Marketing Group, 2021)
Nearly 15% of all emails never make it to the inbox. (EmailToolTester, 2022)

These B2B content marketing stats are powerful, but how you apply these insights will vary depending on your industry. And if you need help creating new content, don’t forget to get in touch!