The top 21 marketing statistics you need to see

It seems that crafting the perfect marketing plan for your business is like aiming at a moving target — one moment it seemed as though lead generation strategies ruled the roost, then, the next thing you knew, email marketing campaigns took over. Before you knew it, video content and paid social media marketing were all the rage.

Keeping up seems nearly impossible.

But the real secret to building the ultimate marketing plan for your business lies in one simple endeavor — staying in the know.

For companies who are consistently working to create self-effective marketing strategies for their businesses, the most powerful tool is knowledge. Staying on top of the latest trends, understanding what’s hot and what’s not in the marketing world, and being up-to-speed are all factors that will heavily influence your marketing strategy.

One of the biggest keys to the marketing kingdom is this: Understanding and acknowledging the latest marketing statistics.

Staying up-to-date on these stats helps you in all aspects of marketing – from traditional avenues like lead generation techniques and email marketing to more modern, digital outlets like Google AdWords strategies and video marketing.

The top 21 marketing stats you need to know

From SEO to sales, marketing strategy is all about knowing what works and what doesn’t. Admittedly, keeping all of your statistics straight can be challenging – that’s why we’ve done the hard work for you.

Check out the top 21 marketing statistics we think you should be aware of.

4 SEO-related statistics you should be aware of

SEO is king when it comes to clever marketing.

Why? Because SEO (otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization) is a technique that pushes consumers in your direction based on their searches.

SEO has been and continues to be, one of the best ways to market your business online because it’s one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to drive organic traffic to your site, your e-commerce shop, and your social media platforms.

According to New Media Campaigns, organic SEO pays off about 5.66 times more than investing in paid search ads – it just takes the right amount of understanding and knowledge to make this happen. True SEO takes patience, time, and practice – it’s a strategic technique that’s said to be more intensive than paid advertising.

An enormous key to making SEO work for your marketing strategy is understanding that SEO is based on both link building as well as high-quality content, according to Google’s Search Quality Senior Strategist, Andrey Lipattsev.

That being said, if you plan to incorporate SEO strategies into your marketing plan, it’s vital to understand that you must play by Google’s rules. According to NetMarketShare, Google was reported to account for over 79 percent of all global desktop search traffic, with Bing and Yahoo coming in at just 7.27 percent and 6.55 percent, respectively.

Another SEO stat worth mentioning revolves around the effectiveness of local SEO. A 2016 Google statistic stated that, about 28 percent of searching for something nearby resulted in a purchase.

Translation? It pays to ensure your SEO strategy includes local SEO features.

If your organization, startup, or established business is able to invest time, money, and resources into SEO optimization as part of your marketing plan, it will certainly boost your traffic, prove to be cost-effective, and drive your marketing efforts.

4 paid marketing statistics you need to know

When you think paid marketing, you likely think of elements like paid ads or pay-per-click strategies.

Paid marketing strategies, like implementing those pay-per-clicks and Google AdWords, can be successful elements of your marketing campaigns. Wordstream reports that about 64.6 percent of consumers click on Google ads when they’re seeking out an item to purchase. Also, the conversation rate for AdWords is vital, citing that that the average conversionrate (across all industries, again) is 2.7 percent on the search network.

Paid marketing strategies are available via social media platforms in the form of paid advertisements — a logical, and often effective tactic for reaching a larger audience.

With over 79 percent of people online using Facebook, as reported by Pew Research Center, and the trend of paid social media advertising continuing to grow, it’s no small wonder that marketing tactics continually turn toward paid social media advertising. In fact, according to a CMO survey report, social media advertising budgets are predicted to increase nearly two-fold by 2023.

That being said, paid marketing can be a double-edged sword. Though it is certainly a technique you should consider including in your marketing strategy, it’s not always received positively. Keep in mind that ad blocking (which dramatically affects the paid marketing strategy) has increased from 15 percent to 30 percent since 2014, according to Statista, whereas mobile ad blocking has increased 90 percent year-over-year – meaning people aren’t always keen on watching or seeing paid ads.

4 content market strategy stats that can affect your marketing strategy

In most cases, your marketing strategy is only as good as the content driving it – that means you need to keep up with what’s trending, what’s out of style, and what’s on the horizon when it comes to content creation. More importantly, as cited previously by Google’s Search Quality Senior Strategist, Andrey Lipattsev, excellent content marketing (especially high-ranking SEO content marketing) is based on quality over quantity.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, quality content marketing has the potential to produce three times more leads than paid search advertising. It’s reported to have lower up-front costs, while retaining more effective longer-term benefits than paid methods of advertising.

Blog content creation is a huge element of content marketing strategies – it drives SEO, generates traffic, and helps with Google ranking as well. Businesses who invest in blogs as part of their marketing strategy can typically generate about a 126 percent increase in lead growth (due to the fact that about 77 percent of internet users read blogs). Another huge content marketing tactic that has blown up over the past few years is podcasts. This type of content marketing continues to grow year-over-year and has become a great strategy for boosting content marketing.

Content marketing strategies have been known to increase conversion rates (converting leads into customers) about six times more than the power of traditional marketing.

3 video marketing statistics to consider

Before we dive into the stats behind this, heed this advice: implement video into your marketing strategy this year.

Video content is, at least in this day-in-age, one of the most influential and effective tactics that marketers can add to their overall strategy. Product videos are said to increase purchases by over 144 percent (according to Neil Patel). Further, about 50 percent of internet users are looking for video reviews and video product descriptions for a specific brand, shop, or product before they invest in visiting a brick-and-mortar store.

Another impressive point about video? It reaches people while driving search results. Omnicore reports that video content is over 50 times more likely to help drive organic search results than plain text – further, having a video thumbnail pop up in search results can more than double your traffic.

3 email marketing statistics you need to know

Email marketing is a staple for marketing plans; according to data from Wordstream, about 59 percent of B2B marketers claim that email is their most effective marketing channel in terms of revenue generation.

The ultimate goal of email marketing is to maximize ROI. It’s especially valuable if you’re looking to increase engagement rates (54 percent of marketers say that’s the primary goal of their email marketing strategies).

Want to ensure you’re maximizing the potential of your email marketing campaign? Ensure you’re putting out good, functional, and well-formatted content. Further, try sending email marketing campaigns at times that prove to be effective for you – this is where tracking can come in handy.

Sending emails on Tuesdays, for example, can be highly effective for marketing campaigns as this is the best day of the week to send emails, according to Wordstream.

It helps to track what happens to those emails after you send them. Does your consumer click through and utilize them? Are they opened? Are they ignored? Tracking this information can help you build a smarter email marketing campaign.

1 marketing automation tool statistic that should make your marketing list

We’ll keep this one short and sweet – if you want to succeed, you might want to look into investing in marketing automation tools. Martech Today anticipates that by 2023, the spending on marketing automation tools will be close to $25.1 billion.

In other words, this isn’t a trend that’s fading anytime soon. These tools can help you manage leads, improve ROI, and utilize analytics to create a more effective marketing plan.

2 visual content statistics you must know

This is all the rage in modern marketing techniques (especially for digital purposes). Ofcom reports that visual assets are the single biggest content contributor to digital marketing, especially when it pertains to social media.

Think about it – if 100 million hours of video content are watched every day – a visual form of content – it makes sense that implementing visual content into your marketing plan would make sense, right? Over 45 percent of B2C marketers believe that visual content is their most important content type, according to the Content Marketing Institute.