ANATOMY OF THE MODERN CONTENT MARKETING TEAM. Content Team Structure, Leadership, and the Struggle to Attribute Revenue

Transcription

1 ANATOMY OF THE MODERN CONTENT MARKETING TEAM Content Team Structure, Leadership, and the Struggle to Attribute Revenue

2 Table of Contents Introduction...3 Key Takeaways...4 Content Buy-In and Team Size...5 Content Leadership and Reporting Structure...8 How Content is Created and Measured

3 INTRODUCTION Customers aren t a captive audience anymore; they re empowered to choose to engage with content they want. That means businesses are rushing to build customer-first marketing programs. They re creating content marketing and SEO teams who create value that attracts their customers online. In fact, 80% of marketing executives increased their content and SEO investment in 2017 (2017 Marketing Executive Survey, Conductor). Still, it s easy to forget just how new content teams are. This research reveals that most have existed for less than five years; they re just adding senior content leadership and experience frequent changes in their reporting structure. We also found that content teams especially at large companies struggle with attributing revenue to content. That s why we re seeing more and more businesses turn to technology like Conductor Searchlight to understand the ROI of their content investment. This is an exciting time for content marketing. In the coming years, we ll see more content leadership, larger teams, and more resources as content teams mature and grow and find their natural place in our marketing organizations. 3

4 KEY TAKEAWAYS Content teams are relatively new, and are still finding their place in the org. Most content teams have existed for less than 5 years and over a third have recently switched which team they report to. Most content teams have no senior content marketer, or they have had one for less than 2 years. Most companies especially large ones struggle to attribute revenue to content. Only 5.3% of content marketers from companies with 10,000+ employees can clearly attribute revenue to content. Organic traffic is the top metric for measuring value. Most content marketers, regardless of company size, listed organic traffic as their number 1 metric for measuring content success. SEO skills are key to success. 92% of content marketers agree that understanding and executing SEO better will help them do their job more effectively. 4

5 CONTENT INVESTMENT AND TEAM SIZE 73.4% of all Content Marketers Have Executive Buy-in Management in my company believes that content strategy is an important business initiative. 11.7% 73.4% 14.7% Neutral Agree / Strongly Agree Disagree / Strongly Disagree 5

6 CONTENT INVESTMENT AND TEAM SIZE More Than Half of Content Teams Are Under 4-Years-Old Content teams are still relatively new; 41.5% say their content team has been around 2-4 years. 21.3% say for 5-9 years. 41.5% How long has your company had an in-house digital content marketing program? 21.3% 7.9% 13.4% 7.9% 4.3% 3.7% 10+ years 5-9 years 2-4 years 1 year or less I don t know I m at an agency We don t have one 6

7 CONTENT INVESTMENT AND TEAM SIZE Majority of Content Teams Have 2-4 Members 45.1% of content marketers reported in-house content teams of 2-4 people. How large is your in-house content team? 20.1% 5-9 People 11.6% People 45.1% 2-4 People 6.7% 20+ People 3.7% No In-house Team 12.8% 1 Person 7

8 CONTENT LEADERSHIP AND REPORTING STRUCTURE Most content teams have recently added senior members and many have no senior content marketers at all. 28.4% of content marketers have had a senior content marketer for over two years, and 39.5% do not have a senior content marketer at all. Of the content marketers that do have a senior content marketer, 53.1% have had one less than two years. Larger companies are more likely to have Director or VP-level content marketers as the most senior member of their content team. Comparatively, smaller companies are most likely to list a Manager as their most senior-level content marketer. 8

9 CONTENT LEADERSHIP AND REPORTING STRUCTURE 33.1% Have Reported to Multiple Departments in The Last 5 Years Content reports to many disparate places in the org, and a third of content teams have changed where they report at least once in the last five years. How many teams has content reported to in the last five years? 19.6% I m not sure 12.9% Three or more teams 47.2% The same team the whole time 20.2% Two different teams 9

10 CONTENT LEADERSHIP AND REPORTING STRUCTURE Where Content Reports vs. Where Content Says They Should Report 45.1% 38.4% Where Content Reports Where Content Says They Should Report 13.4% 12.2% 10.4% 12.2% 9.1% 4.3% 6.1% 4.3% 2.4% 3.7% 1.8% 2.4% 1.8% Head of Marketing Corporate Marketing Demand Marketing Product Marketing Ecommerce PR Each department has its own content marketers Content is Independent 10

11 CONTENT LEADERSHIP AND REPORTING STRUCTURE Content and SEO work closely together, and Content Professionals need SEO skills. Over a third of respondents (35%) indicate that their SEO professional is on the same team as them. The largest number of respondents (45.7%) indicated that they work closely together with the SEO team. 21% of respondents identify themselves as both the content and SEO professional. 92% of content marketers agree that understanding and executing SEO better will help them do their job more effectively. 11

12 HOW CONTENT IS CREATED & MEASURED Most content is done in-house. However, the bigger the org, the more likely they outsource. 65.9% of content marketers reported their content creation is done in-house. Only 2% rely primarily on freelancers. 26.8% report using a mix of both. 82.8% of B2C content marketers do their content primarily in-house compared to only 67.2% of B2B content marketers. B2B content marketers were more likely than B2C content marketers to use a mix of agency, freelancers and in-house content creators (29.9% vs. 17.2% respectively). 12

13 HOW CONTENT IS CREATED & MEASURED The larger the organization, the longer the approval process take. While companies of all sizes most often take one day to one week to get approval to publish content, more than half (52.7%) of all respondents from companies with 10,000+ employees take anywhere from one week to three months. How long does the approval process for publishing content take? 21.1% One to three months 31.6% A day to a week Companies with 10,000+ Employees 15.8% About a day 31.6% A week to one month 13

14 HOW CONTENT IS CREATED & MEASURED The larger the organization, the harder it is to attribute revenue to content. Percentage of content marketers from different size companies that can clearly or somewhat attribute revenue to content: 80% 69.8% 78.5% 68% 44.4% 31.6% Under 100 Employees Employees Employees 1,000-4,999 Employees 5,000-9,999 Employees 10,000 + Employees If you look at companies who can clearly attribute revenue to content, the numbers get even smaller. From companies with under 100 employees, 30% of content marketers can clearly attribute revenue to content compared to only 5.3% of content marketers from companies with 10,000+ employees. 14

15 HOW CONTENT IS CREATED & MEASURED Organic traffic is the number one metric content marketers use to measure success. How do you measure the success of your content? Select the top 3 metrics: 1 Organic Traffic 2 Leads Social Engagement All Traffic Time on Site 6 Revenue 7 Transactions 15

16 Learn how leading marketers measure their content efforts with Conductor. Visit to facebook.com/conductor youtube.com/conductorinc linkedin.com/company/conductor-inc- Who did we survey? See here: cndr.co/content-demographics