With cost efficiency and better brand knowledge as key benefits, many companies are moving marketing activities, including content marketing, from agencies to in-house teams. Nonetheless, many businesses are still using agency services and, according to a new survey [pdf] from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), nearly half of the agencies surveyed report that content marketing services make up at least 50% of their total business.
Of the almost 200 agencies surveyed, 61% offer a full scope of content marketing services as part of a standalone agency or as part of a large or lead agency. Essentially all (37%) of the remaining respondents offer at least one specialized service related to content marketing such as SEO, social media, video production and email marketing. Some 70% of full scope agencies respondents say they have increased the scope of the content marketing services they offer as well as the number of content marketing clients they have served in the last year.
Last year, CMI found that just about half (47%) of the B2B marketers surveyed were focusing their content marketing efforts on the early, awareness, stage of the buying cycle. Consequently, virtually all (97%) full scope agencies from this latest study report that they engage in top-of-the-funnel content marketing services for their clients. Slightly fewer (90%) contract for mid-funnel work, while a much smaller majority (61%) work on post-sale or customer retention activities.
The good news is that almost three-quarters of respondents say they are either very successful (61%) or extremely successful (12%) in achieving their clients’ content marketing goals.
So, what technologies are agencies using that enables them to garner this high level of success for their clients?
Earlier data from the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) indicated that 45% of the agencies they surveyed believed that customer insights and analytics was one of the top drivers of agency growth in 2019. This latest study finds that the vast majority (83%) of agencies offering a full scope of content marketing services say that they are using analytics (i.e. web analytics, dashboards) in an effort to aid the content marketing of their clients. Another three-quarters (76%) of respondents say they are using social media content/management tools and 71% are using email marketing software.
More data from the report can be accessed online here.
About the Data: CMI surveyed 197 agency subscribers from their database. Of these agencies, 71% were US-based with 61% of respondents being owners/partners of their agency.