• by Jess Nelson , January 14, 2016

Some 73% of the 632 marketers polled by Contently, a marketing company, admit to creating more content overall in 2015, but only 49% ranked that content as effective towards their overall marketing objectives. A third of marketers ranked their content as average, while 16% said it wasn't very effective and 3% said their content wasn't effective at all.

About 32% of marketers agree that lead conversions and sales are the most important metrics in measuring the success of their content, followed by 19% social shares and likes, 16% pageviews, 11% unique visitors and 9% followers and subscribers.

To reach their objectives marketers might consider quality over quantity in the New Year, especially considering how 37% of marketers responded that time was their biggest challenge to creating effective content. Time management constraints jumped up 11% from 2015 to overwhelmingly rank above strategy, distribution, internal support, budget, and technical support as the biggest hurdle towards effective marketing content.

In addition to time and resources available, data yet again appears to an Achilles Heel for marketers. 30% of respondents still don't have a tool or platform that provides data on their content, meaning they have no way to measure if their content is making an impact at all.

Email, however, continues to be a success story for content marketers and ranks as the most effective organic distribution channel for both B2B and B2C marketers, followed by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Email was also ranked as the second most effective paid distribution channel behind Facebook.