A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it.
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Today I’ve got 3 important charts for you.
Taken together, they (and the research reports they’re part of) allow you to navigate your entire content strategy and help you smash it as a writer, too.
Lezgoooooooo.
1 >>> B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 from MarketingProfs, Content Marketing Institute
Now in its 15th (!) year!
If an internet year is like a dog year (and it is), that would make this report dominating the pickleball court at its assisted living facility.
Why you should read it:
If you’re in B2B marketing, this is the report that lets you benchmark your programs and skills.
It also can help your mental health—in the sense that our report year after year quantifies how a lot of us are still trying to figure things out.
It’s a nice antidote to the self-assured narrative we see in places like LinkedIn, where people communicate everything with the absolute confidence of the righteous.
Yes, this report gives you the data. But it also whispers… “We’re all out here just doing our best, aren’t we?”
One useful chart:
Why this chart is useful:
Content challenges hit different in 2024. You can see it in the top challenge for 2024: Creating content that prompts a desired action.
Roughly 55% of us cry the tears of how do I prove this is working becuz my Q4 bonus is tied to MQLs!!! 😭
My thoughts:
B2B content is now part of a complex matrix of various touchpoints, seen and unseen—including word-of-mouth, dark social, that one guy who mentioned your brand once on TikTok.
We want to believe the purchase journey is a straight, orderly line of attribution:
Read blog post > Hit demo > Cha-ching!!
But B2B—or any marketing—doesn’t work that way.
It’s less straight line. It’s more squiggly scribble that overlaps in oddball unexpectedness.
Less straightforward path; more conspiratorial crime scene investigation board. And you are Carrie Mathison trying to untangle it all.
We need to rethink the messy muddle of attribution to find more meaningful ways to know what’s “working”:
- Not how many people downloaded a whitepaper, but… how many then signed up for your email newsletter?
- Don’t stop there: How many of them wrote back to you when you told a story in the last issue about a specific problem they have?
- What did existing customers tell you worked the last time you spoke with them?
- What do you mean you don’t talk to customers…?
Rethink off-the-shelf metrics. Because there is no shelf.
What else to dive into in this report:
- Who’s adopting AI (and how)
- What top performers do that others don’t
- Spending for 2025
- Is video still king?
- MOAR
>>> Get your mitts on the numbers. [Ungated]
2 >>> Annual Blogger Survey (11th edition) from Orbit Media
We covered part of this study a few weeks ago: “What’s your writing process? Sneak peek at new data.”
Now, Andy Crestodina at Orbit Media has let the full report fly free.
Why you should read it:
If you’re a blogger or writer, there’s good info in here about where to focus your energy for the best results.
One useful chart:
Why this chart is useful:
It’s not just you. Blogging really is getting harder.
Yes, most of us are getting results (3 out of 4 say blogging is working for our brands).
But fewer than ever are reporting “strong results”: Only 20%—down from 30% five years ago.
Why?
There’s lots of competition for attention. We all feel that, don’t we?
And organic search traffic is down. Google very much wants to hoard visitors and NOT send us elsewhere, Andy says. That’s why it’s introduced all kinds of things to keep us on their pages (featured snippets, AI answers, free donuts).
Just kidding on the donuts.
My thoughts:
Does that mean we should abandon blogging? No. But we need to reset expectations and rethink how we’re using it.
Blogging in 2024 for most of us is not about getting lots of traffic. Instead, it’s about building a dedicated following of people who look forward to hearing from you.
Use your blog as a destination for content that serves a specific, narrower audience. And content you might also create versions of elsewhere—your newsletter, your social posts.
What else to dive into in this report:
- Does using AI correlate to better results?
- What blog elements drive success? Video? Audio? Research?
- Does it matter if you use a human editor?
- How are we driving people to our blogs if Google has ditched us?
>>> Get your claws on the numbers. [Ungated]
3 >>> 2024 Generative AI Marketing Industry Report by Social Media Examiner
What’s going on with marketing and generative AI, anyhoo…?
Why you should read it: Gen AI is so new that any research that gets past the hype and looks at what’s actually going on is worth a glance. And this report has some not-so-obvious insights… whether you are using gen AI or not.
Don’t miss the breakdown of which tools and platforms we’re using the most.
One useful chart:
Why this chart is useful:
This chart surprised me and (TBH) hurt my heart: 67% of us are using AI to create first drafts of content?? What the…..?
That seems… wow. Enormously high. I asked report author Michael Stelzner about it: Was that a typo? Did we miss a decimal point somewhere? Am I in a dystopian nightmare? Is this Upside Down World?
But nope.
That’s what the numbers say. But he pointed out that the chart doesn’t reflect WHAT we’re writing: Could be time-off requests to Workday? Email complaints to Operations about the lack of vegan Spam in the cafeteria? LinkedIn comments?
“The question is… first drafts of what, exactly?” Michael said.
Fair.
I mean, we all see the LinkedIn Robo-Comments.
My thoughts:
To anyone using an AI-first strategy for writing the first draft of anything more important than the vegan complaints… Well, you know how I feel about this. (We talked about it last time.)
We use technology to take shortcuts. But we need to be strategic in which shortcuts we take.
I am not worried about robots taking our jobs. But I am worried about robots undermining our confidence.
Your first draft is your thinking draft. Don’t outsource your thinking.
If you’re a writer like me, this chart should galvanize you to RISE. UP.
This chart has everything backwards. People first. Then machines.
Let Gen AI-first content plop dull, lifeless clods of content on the internet’s conveyor belt. We know better. We’ve got this.
What else to dive into in this report:
- Claude vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: Who’s your daddy?
- What are we excited about?
- What scares us?
- What’s next for AI and us?
Your copy here. [Ungated]