No matter the reason, content marketing delivers results, especially when it comes to the more traditional end goal: generating leads to feed the sales funnel. In a July 2015 Ascend2 study of B2B marketing professionals, 43% of respondents asserted that content marketing was one of the most effective tactics for lead generation.
Of course, getting a large number of leads is only the beginning, especially as B2B marketers consider how content marketing can pay off over time. A May 2015 Starfleet Media study found that 80% of B2B marketing professionals worldwide used the number of leads as a content performance metric last year. That percentage was down slightly from 2014, when it was 84%.
Over the same period, other performance metrics gained ground, including sales conversions (from 78% in 2014 to 86% in 2015) and quality of leads (66% to 72%). Also interesting was the share of B2B marketers who considered cost savings and marketing ROI as a performance metric: In both 2014 and 2015, roughly 45% used savings as a way to measure the success of content marketing.