• by Ray Schultz , December 12, 2019

Email newsletters play a major role in B2C content distribution, especially at certain points in the buyer journey, according to 2020 B2C content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends, a report by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute. 

For instance, email newsletter are utilized by 16% to secure leads. In contrast, social media content and in-person events are used by 13% apiece.

In addition, 24% use email newsletters to nurture leads, versus 17% who deploy social media content.

However, at the brand awareness stage, blog posts/short articles and social media content are each preferred by 31%.

Of the content created in the last 12 months, 43% was intended for the top of the funnel, 20% for mid-funnel, 18% for late-state, 12% for post-sale and 7% or other areas.

The top content technologies are: 

Social media publishing/analytics (84%), analytics tools (83%) and email marketing software (72%) 

In general, 75% of B2C brands say their content marketing is successful, while 24% say it is very successful, 46% say it is moderately effective and 5% say it is extremely successful. Another 24% feel it is only moderately successful, and 1% feel that it is a failure.

But they are improving: 21% feel they are doing much better than a year ago, 51% say they are doing somewhat better and 22% feel they are at the same level. Only 3% feel they are somewhat less successful, and 2% say that they are much worse.

The study also found that 55% outsource at least one content marketing activity. Of those, 80% outsource content creation and 37% outsource distribution. 

The top 2020 priorities are improve quality and conversion of audiences (50%), focus on content quality/quantity (50%) and increase of their audience size (40%).

The study also found that Facebook is the leading organic and paid social media platform for content providers.