Now is the Time to Document Your Content Marketing Strategy

What is the most important trait of a successful b2b content marketer? According to the Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) recently released B2B Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks. Budgets, and Trends – North America report, it’s the fact that their content marketing process is well documented. However, according to the data, fewer b2b marketers have a documented strategy compared to last year.

Do You Have a Documented Content Strategy?

The report found that while 80% of b2b marketers are running some form of content marketing, only 32% have a documented strategy, despite the fact that documentation is far more associated with content marketing success. The CMI has been flogging this point for a while now. They’ve stated in the past that marketers with a documented content marketing strategy are:

• Far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing
• Far less challenged with every aspect of content marketing
• Generally more likely to consider themselves more effective with every tactic and social media channel
• Able to justify a higher percentage of the marketing budget to be spent on content marketing

Do you have a Content Marketing Mission Statement?

Documentation has to begin somewhere, and it likely begins with an organization’s editorial mission statement. According to Wikipedia, mission statement is “a statement which is used as a way of communicating the purpose of the organization… [it] should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. It provides.”
By this definition, the content marketing mission statement is the key to planning one’s content marketing roadmap. Yet, the Content Marketing report reveals that 35% of content marketers completely lack a mission statement, and of the 58% who do only 28% have it documented.

Content Marketing Maturity

Of the 80% of marketers that are employing some kind of content strategy, most consider themselves at the middle of the road as to their maturity level, only 8% calling themselves sophisticated content marketers and 29% marking themselves at the adolescent level.
Most of these folks remain heavily involved in content development, using an average of 13 content marketing tactics including case studies (83%), blogs (81%), videos (79%), infographics (67%), and webinars (66%) at every level.

Content Marketing Conclusion

If there’s only one takeaway from the CMI report, it’s that marketers lacking a well-documented content marketing strategy should immediately begin the process of documentation. The report reveals only 30% of marketers say they are effective in their content marketing strategy, a number that aligns closely with the 28% who have a documented mission statement and the 32% who have a documented strategy. Clearly, marketers striving to eliminate waste and improve the efficiency of their content programs should start documenting their content marketing processes as soon as possible.