As we dive into 2024 full force, it’s important to know what we, as marketers, are up against this year. One thing is for sure: new tech, new trends, and ever-changing industries will keep us on our toes. And while plenty of people are sharing their predictions for 2024 (ourselves included), we’re most curious about what the latest marketing data reveals about the future. That’s why we did a deep dive into the latest reports and research to uncover the most important insights you should consider as you approach the next year of marketing.
25 Marketing Statistics for Marketers
How is consumer behavior changing? What platforms are most popular? What does the advent of AI mean for you? Here, we’re breaking down the biggest takeaways from our research—and sharing our best tips to help you turn these data points into meaningful action.
Data Insight: Re-examine your buyer journey.
1) 80% of B2B buyers now expect the same buying experience as B2C customers—and 75% will switch if they don’t like their experience. (McKinsey)
What it means: Stop clinging to the myth that B2B marketing is intellectual, not emotional. Look for ways to infuse more personality across the buyer journey, but allow your audience the same independence to locate the information they want.
2) There is an average of five decision-makers involved in every sales process today. (HubSpot)
What it means: The content you create should appeal to many segments of your audience. So map your customer personas and ensure you’re creating a mix of content that speaks to everyone.
3) 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. (McKinsey)
What it means: Personalization can drastically increase engagement across all stages of the buyer journey, from site chatbots to email marketing. Find out how AI can help you implement more personalization to improve your customer experience.
4) 71% of prospects prefer doing their own research vs. speaking to a human. (Hubspot)
What it means: Ensure your audience can easily access the content they need without having to reach out to a salesperson—and ensure the content you produce answers their common questions.
5) 96% of consumers research the tools they’re considering before speaking to any rep from a company. (Hubspot)
What it means: It’s likely that consumers are reaching out to you with a certain level of knowledge about your product already. Create more sales enablement content that lets them go deeper and highlights more of the benefits.
Data Insight: Create the right content.
6) Only 1 in 7 people feel represented in the ads that they see. (GWI)
What it means: Consider the ways your brand communicates to your audience. What type of people do you depict? What type of brand voice do you use? Follow our tips to make your marketing more inclusive.
7) 89% of people say watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service. (Wyzowl)
What it means: Video should be a part of your marketing strategy. Download our free Content Marketer’s Guide to Brand Video for more tips to bring video into the fold.
8) 75% of C-level and VP buyers are likely to be influenced to take a meeting, or otherwise connect, by ROI cases. (RAIN Group)
What it means: Make sure you are producing case studies that tell a compelling story. Start with our tips to tell customer success stories the right way.
9) 94% of B2B marketers use short articles/posts. (Content Marketing Institute)
What it means: Your audience is flooded with your content—and everybody else’s. You need to stand out from the crowd by offering true thought leadership, interesting perspectives, and credibility (data always helps). Above all, focus on providing truly valuable content to your audience.
10) A blog post should be about 1,500 and 2,500 words long. (SEMRush)
What it means: As people use AI for search, and SEO competition becomes tough, it’s important to optimize your content to rank. Far too many marketers publish light and fluffy content that doesn’t have a chance of ranking. Improve your chances by hitting the right length, incorporating images, and infusing emotion into your headlines.
Data Insight: Be smarter on social media.
11) For the first time, more people discover new brands, products, and services via social media ads than by word-of-mouth recommendations, brand and product websites, and consumer review sites. (DataReportal)
What it means: Savvy marketers need to craft paid campaigns that speak directly to consumer pain points, wants, or needs.
12) The #1 way to turn your audience off is to be too self-promotional on social. (Hootsuite)
What it means: Stick to the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content should be a healthy mix of educational, entertaining, or inspirational content and 20% should be promotional.
13) By 2025, a perceived decay in the quality of social media sites will push 50% of consumers to significantly limit their use of major platforms. (Gartner)
What it means: If you want to keep your social followers engaged, you need to focus on providing value through your content (aka focus on quality over quantity).
14) Facebook has the largest reach of all social media advertising platforms in the U.S., with 188,050,000 users. (DataReportal)
What it means: Despite the massive amount of users (and engagement opportunities), fewer brands have hopped on the Facebook video train. This is a great opportunity to expand your video marketing and interact with your audience.
15) Only 0.03% of followers engage with Facebook posts that feature external links. (Locowise)
What it means: Although Facebook is a popular platform for many brands, it’s better to engage your followers with native content only. For example, instead of linking to a blog on your website, publish the key takeaways as a post instead.
16) 84% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn delivers the most value. (Content Marketing Institute)
What it means: In the last few years, LinkedIn has seen a massive increase in thought leaders and industry experts. In addition to paid campaigns, publishing thought leadership natively on the platform is a great way to engage and expand your reach.
17) 56% of consumers think that brands should be more relatable on social media. (Hootsuite)
What it means: You should look for more ways to share your brand personality on social. One great way to be more relatable (and humanize your brand) is to show off your people, your office, or other behind-the-scenes content. Try these tips to showcase your culture on social media.
18) 58% of marketers say the pace at which social networks release new user and advertising features makes it hard to keep up. (Hootsuite)
What it means: It is increasingly difficult to maintain a presence on every single platform that comes on the scene—and you don’t have to. Instead, follow our guide to choose the most important social channels for your brand. Master those first, and then you can expand to others.
Data Insight: Marketers need to work smarter.
19) A/B testing landing pages can generate up to 30-40% more leads for B2B sites and 20-25% more for e-commerce. (Hubspot)
What it means: Don’t consider crucial tools like landing pages to be a “one and done” thing. Take the time to test so you can get the best results possible.
20) 58% of B2B marketers cite a lack of resources as their biggest content-creation challenge. (Content Marketing Institute)
What it means: As budgets get cut and teams shrink, marketers are being expected to do more with less. Thus, you need to work as efficiently as possible. Follow our tips to repurpose content in a smart and intentional way.
21) Salespeople spend just 33% of their time actively selling. (Hubspot)
What it means: AI presents a huge opportunity to remove the administrative tasks that bog sales teams down. Using these tools can help free up time to proactively engage with prospects in organic ways. Marketers can support these efforts by creating sales enablement content that sales teams can share on social media or via email.
Data Insight: AI is here to stay, but use it with caution.
22) 72% of B2B marketers say they use generative AI tools. (Content Marketing Institute)
What it means: Using tools and knowing how to use them most effectively are two different things. Encourage your team to get more education and practice using AI tools to make your life easier.
23) 62% of consumers say they are less likely to engage with and trust social media content if they know it was created by an AI application. (Hootsuite)
What it means: Good content marketing will continue to boil down to authenticity. The more you can show off your personality and add your own human perspective, the more people will trust you.
24) 61% of B2B marketers say their organization lacks guidelines for AI use. (Content Marketing Institute)
What it means: It is incredibly important to approach AI ethically (as this will continue to be a hot-button issue for consumers). Craft guidelines around use cases, disclosure, privacy concerns, etc. to ensure your team is aligned.
25) By 2028, brands will see their organic site traffic decrease by 50% or more as consumers embrace GenAI-powered search. (Gartner)
What it means: As traditional SEO tactics become less effective, consider how your content operation will need to shift to not only incorporate AI but also cater to AI.
How to Succeed in 2024
No matter what the next year throws at you, if you start with a strong strategy and an agile mindset, you can navigate any challenges. That said, there are a few ways you can set yourself up to win.
- Get your house in order. Follow this checklist of things to do to align your team, your goals, your strategy, and your infrastructure.
- Look at how others are succeeding. There are so many brands doing great work. If you need some inspiration, find out how Canva, Freestyle, and Liquid Death are creating communities with their audiences.
- Stay educated. If you want to beat the competition, you need to keep up with the latest marketing trends and best practices. Start by subscribing to Column Five’s Best Story Wins podcast, where we interview industry pros about the ways they’re winning hearts, minds, and market share. You can also take a look at our free resources library for more tools, tips, and templates to support your marketing.
Most importantly, if you need any help with any part of your marketing operation, make sure you choose the right partner. Start your search with our tips to find a good content marketing agency, take a peek at our FAQs, or reach out. We’d love to help your brand best the competition.
