3 Statistics That Prove Content Marketing is Worth It

If you haven’t yet fully committed to content marketing, you may be wondering if it’s really, truly worth it.

Luckily, the folks at Kapost and Eloqua conducted some in-depth research that unequivocally proves just how much ROI companies see from their content marketing (hint: it’s nothing to sneeze at). Let’s take a look at their findings.

1. The Cost of Good Content

To set the stage, we’ll examine how much money medium and large businesses spend on content marketing. Mid-sized companies spend an average of $11,957 per month on content marketing, while larger-sized companies spend an average of $32,720 per month on content marketing.

As you can see, the majority of those costs go toward internal higher-ups, such as editors and C-level executives.

For both mid- and large-sized companies, blog post costs are under $2,000 per month, while premium content costs max out at $3,500 per month.

Content marketing is also significantly less expensive than paid search–for mid-sized businesses, it’s 31 percent cheaper, while for larger-sized businesses it’s 41 percent cheaper.

2. Content Marketing Results

For both mid- and larger-sized companies, content marketing results in a sizable increase in site visits after just 12 months. After 24 months, the number of site visits turns sharply upwards for mid-sized companies, and positively skyrockets for larger-sized companies.

That increase in site visits doesn’t also mean an increase in cost, however. In fact, the cost per lead drops by an impressive 80 percent in the first five months of content marketing. For both mid- and larger-sized companies, that means that the cost per lead dips under $5,000 by the fifth month, and bottoms out at under $100 after two years.

3. Content Marketing ROI

At the end of the day, content marketing is more than worth it–$1,000 worth of content marketing can generate 31 leads, while $1,000 worth of paid search can generate only nine leads (that’s a difference of almost $80 per lead).

That’s largely due to the fact that content marketing relies on building an audience, not constantly trying to capture the attention of potential customers.

This also means that content marketing doesn’t just generate leads, it also fosters real relationships that last.

What kind of ROI have you seen from content marketing? Does your experience mirror the study’s findings? Let’s talk about it in the comments!