We hear all the time that content marketing has come a long way in the past few years and that this strategy will continue to be a growing trend in the future.

But where’s the proof?

I’ve pulled together 51 of some of the most compelling content insights on the web to help marketers plan and adjust for this $44 billion dollar industry. The information compiled below consists of content marketing tactics, use cases across various channels and actionable information to better prepare your organization for content management and production.

Here’s a curated list of a few of the most interesting statistics out there from some of the most knowledgeable content marketing information sources. I highly encourage you to dig deeper into the reports provided below for more detailed information on topic-specific studies.

Content Marketing

93% of B2B marketers use content marketing (Content Marketing Institute)

Content marketing generates 3 times as many leads, per dollar spent, as traditional marketing tactics (Demand Metric)

$135 billion will be spent on creating new digital marketing collateral in 2014 (WebDAM Solutions)

Proving bottom-line results of inbound strategies is a concern for 25% of marketers (HubSpot)

43% of organizations have a dedicated content marketing executive (Curata)

1.2 billion users access the Internet from their mobile devices (Epik Consulting)

7 out of 10 readers would prefer to learn about a company through their content, rather than an ad (Custom Content Council)

61% of B2B organizations believe webinars are an effective content marketing tactic (CMI & Marketing Profs)

47% of users ignore mobile ads in apps and 43% think ads disrupt UX (Forrester)

33% of marketers don’t know which channel generates the most revenue for them (MediaBistro)

Content marketing makes 70% of consumers feel closer to a company (Demand Metric)

56% of marketers use a form of content-specific technology (Curata)

67% of B2B content marketers believe event marketing is the most effective strategy (MediaBistro)

A majority of the audience you’re marketing to, 65%, are visual learners (WebDAM Solutions)

Online audiences spend 20% of their time reading content (Demand Metric)

60-70% of content created by B2B organizations goes unused (Sirius Decisions)

10-20% of website content drives 90% of it’s web traffic; 0.5% of that content drives over 50% of traffic (Inbound Writer)

Content published by influencers is 74% editorial (Technorati Media)

82% of consumers trust a company more when the CEO/leadership team are active social media users (TopRank)

33% of content marketers are unable to measure the effectiveness of their strategy (Polaris)

Digital marketing spend will surpass 50% of total program spend by 2016 (IDC)

71% of organizations plan on increasing spend on content marketing in 2014; 39% plan to increase spend on curation (Curata)

65% of content marketers tailor content to industry trends (CMI & Marketing Profs)

40% of marketers use some sort of CRM technology (Act-On)

76% of content marketers used newsletters to reach consumers in 2013 (eMarketer)

Reaching the right audience and converting leads are the top marketing priorities for 23% of marketers (HubSpot)

Multichannel campaign management is a top priority for 27% of content marketers (Adobe)

77% of business buyers prefer different content at various stages of the product research process (Pardot/Salesforce)

Social Media

Social Media is used by 87% of B2B marketers to distribute content (Demand Metric)

LinkedIn’s conversion rate is 3 times higher than Twitter and Facebook (Quick Sprout)

Images result in a 98% higher comment rate on LinkedIn (Quick Sprout)

33% of consumers discover new brands, products or services by reading messages on social networks (eMarketer)

There are over 420K c-level executives on Twitter (Social Strand Media)

70% of organizations have a presence on Google+ (Jeff Bullas)

Increased exposure is the top benefit of social media marketing for 89% of marketers (Social Media Examiner)

Content marketing is a top strategy for 57% of marketers (Altimeter)

34% of marketers have generated leads through Twitter (Jeff Bullas)

Google+ has 300 million active monthly users (USAToday)

71% of tweets are ignored, only 23% generate replies (Search Engine Journal)

43% of content marketers say social media is a top contributor to marketing success (Gartner)

29% of organizations are producing content assets each week (Eloqua)

YouTube attracts 1 billion unique users each month (YouTube)

50% of consumers are more likely to purchase from organizations they follow on Twitter (TopRank)

Search

92% of marketers find content marketing an effective driver for SEO (Sekari)

41% of traffic to content sites is from search (TopRank)

2000 words is the average length of posts that rank on the first page of Google (Optimind Technology)

40% of B2B website traffic is from organic search (MediaPost)

Blogs

23% of a user’s time online is spent on social media and blogs (CMI)

Blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links (Content+)

77% of your online audience reads blogs (Ignite Spot)

57% of marketers have acquired a new customer from their blog posts (Sekari)

Over 27 million pieces of content are shared every day (AOL & Nielson)

75% of marketers are increasing their focus on marketing automation; 63% are increasing focus on blogging (eMarketer)

B2B companies that blog create 67% more leads than organizations that don’t (WebDAM Solutions)

Email

Online services most likely to influence purchases include brand sites, 34%, and blogs, 31.1% (Technorati Media)

75% of readers are likely to delete emails that can’t be read on their phones (Marketo)

76% of CMOs say email marketing generates brand awareness (iContact)

The most trusted online services are news sites at 51% and blogs are trusted by 29% of readers (Technorati Media)

Hope this list got you up to speed on the latest in the world of content marketing! Know of any other intriguing content marketing statistics? Let us know in a comment below & check out our Content Marketing Tactics Planner for more information on what tactics over 500 organizations are putting in motion this year.

Also, if you’re ready to learn how content curation can help complement your created content and better engage your audience, then reach out to us for a brief demo of Curata’s solution.