Content Marketing Maturity Report 2022

Content Marketing
Maturity Report
2022
Content Marketing
2 Maturity Report 2022
Contents
Foreword by ContentCal 3
Executive summary 4
Introduction 6
Culture and objectives 9
Resourcing 15
Channels and activities 18
Technology 24
Challenges 26
Key takeaways 30
Appendix31
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Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022
3
Foreword by
ContentCal
by Alex Packham
Founder and CEO
ContentCal was created in response to constant content

evolution. The platform was originally built to improve on
existing tools in the market and make our agency business
easier to manage, but soon filled a wider gap for a tool that
supports social and content marketers as their activity scales
and their maturity develops.
We set to work designing and iterating a piece To arm our current (and future) customers
of software that would be easy to use, but with the best possible tool for their immediate
sophisticated enough to make a real business content marketing and future content
impact. We knew that learning from the way goals, we need to fully understand what is
our customers operate, strategise and grow happening in the wider realms of content
would ultimately determine our success. marketing, and commissioned this research
Rather than building a roadmap around the report to do just that.
question ‘what do we want to do next’ we
built it around the challenge of ‘what will our I’d like to personally thank the 1,600
customers want to do next’. respondents who took the time to share their
content marketing views and expertise. We
appreciate you and hope you find this report
helpful and actionable.
Content Marketing
Executive summary
Content marketing has become such an integral part of the

business landscape that it already feels like a few years
since we’d supposedly reached ‘peak content’. But its use
has continued to grow as a key channel for companies and
other organisations of all shapes and sizes.
Talk to content marketers themselves, The research identifies a segment of content
however, and they report a discipline at an marketing leaders, and examines in detail how
inflexion point. Content marketing is widely these companies differ from the mainstream
accepted by senior management, and across areas including culture, resourcing,
budgets continue to increase. But it is far from channels used, and technology employed.
mature, and still struggles to establish itself It also considers the influence of company
in a strategic role. According to this research size and business focus (i.e. B2B vs. B2C) on
carried out by London Research in partnership whether organisations are, for example, more
with ContentCal, less than a quarter (23%) of likely to share their content strategy, KPIs,
companies believe they “have a clear content results and analysis across the business.
marketing strategy aligned to business
objectives, with full company leadership Leaders are significantly more likely than their
buy-in”. mainstream peers to allocate budget to all
the main areas of content marketing, to have
Building on qualitative research carried out a dedicated content marketing team, and to
earlier this year for another London Research involve employees across the business in their
and ContentCal whitepaper, Content content marketing activities.
Marketing: Moving from Tactics to Strategy1,
this report is based on a survey of more than
1,500 companies.
1 https://www.contentcal.io/content-marketing-moving-from-tactics-to-strategy
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Executive summary
5
Other key findings include:

Methodology
This research is based primarily on
Content marketing leaders don’t all look alike. an online business survey of 1,576
Channels used and activities undertaken are respondents carried out in July and
August 2021. Survey respondents
influenced much more by whether companies included a mixture of both client-side
operate in the B2B or B2C space. The amount and agency employees. The report
includes breakdowns of results split by
of budget dedicated to content marketing – and B2B and B2C, and also by company
how widely it’s spent – is much more likely to size (measured by annual revenue).
The majority of respondents came from
depend on company size. either the UK (45%) or the US (18%). More
information about the profile of survey
The lack of senior management buy-in is much respondents can be found in the appendix
less of a barrier to content marketing maturity to this report, including the split by
business seniority and business function.
than might be expected. The real difficulty Sixty percent of respondents said they
is translating that backing into a strategic work in the marketing function.
approach with appropriate resourcing.

Mainstream companies (i.e. non-leaders)
appear to have identified spending money with
agencies and on media as shortcuts to better
content marketing, and are doing so to improve
their performance.
Although larger companies typically
have more advanced content marketing
capabilities than smaller ones, lack of scale
has its own advantages. Small organisations
appear to be better at measurement and
attribution, at focusing on quality content,
and at understanding the requirements of the
customers and/or stakeholders.
Content Marketing
Section 1
Introduction
Content marketing is not new. The term was The challenges they reported include:
first used by John F Oppedahl at an American
Society of Newspaper Editors conference in • Businesses placing too much emphasis
1996, while the concept itself has been around on the quantity of content published, and
since the invention of the printing press. But not enough on the strategic aims of the
use of content marketing has boomed in the business’s content marketing.
digital era, largely because the internet has
given consumers unprecedented control of • The difficulty of attributing and measuring
their media experience. the effects of content marketing throughout
the customer journey.
Tools like ad blockers, premium ad-free
services and skip buttons enable us to edit • A lack of understanding of the value of
advertising out of our lives. The appeal of content marketing among management and
content marketing was summed up neatly by other departments.
GM O’Connell, founder of Modem Media, the
world’s first digital agency, back in the late This research follows up on that report,
1990s. He described it as “advertising-as-a- examining these and other issues in detail
service”, the creation of marketing messages through quantitative research as outlined in
that were useful and valuable enough for us to the methodology.
let them through our digital defences.
Leaders and the mainstream
By 2020, 70% of marketers were investing in A key element of this research is the
content marketing, with 40% saying content comparison between the behaviours of
marketing is a very important part of their content marketing ‘leaders’ and those of the
overall marketing strategy2. Research for this mainstream. These two groups are defined
report found almost two-thirds of respondents by their response to the question “What
(61%) agreed they plan to increase their spend best describes the way your organisation
in the channel, with a fifth (19%) strongly approaches content marketing?” (Figure 1).
agreeing. Leaders are those companies that said they
“have a clear content marketing strategy
But qualitative research carried out by aligned to business objectives, and with full
London Research for ContentCal earlier this company leadership buy-in”. The research
year found that, despite the popularity of found less than a quarter (23%) of client-side
content marketing, practitioners still struggle respondents describe themselves in these
to establish the strategic importance of the terms.
discipline to their business, and therefore fully
capitalise on its potential.
2 https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Introduction
7
Looking at this data by company size shows FIGURE 1

the largest companies (those with annual
revenues of more than $50m) are most likely What best describes the way your organisation approaches
to rate themselves as leaders (30%) (Figure content marketing?
2). This compares to 20% of medium-sized
companies (annual revenues between $5m
and $50m), and 17% of small ones (less than 14%
$5m annual revenues).
Content marketing is very much a tactical tool, and mainly restricted to ad hoc
social media posting
The research also uses a content marketing
maturity model, developed by ContentCal 26%
(Figure 3). This describes the journey
to maturity in five stages, each with the We have a range of content marketing activities, but they are not properly
associated mindset, staff resource, activity, co-ordinated
channels, technology, budget and outcomes.
‘Leaders’ in this report correspond to the 37%
‘Strategic’ stage of maturity or higher.
Content marketing activities are largely co-ordinated, but we do not yet have
strategic KPIs tied to business objectives
23%
We have a clear content marketing strategy aligned to business objectives, and

with full company leadership buy-in
Almost a third (30%) of FIGURE 2
large companies classify What best describes the way your organisation approaches
content marketing?
themselves as leaders,
compared to only 17% of  Less than $5m annual revenues
 Between $5m and $50m annual revenues
small companies.  More than $50m annual revenues
21%
8%
2%
Content marketing is very much a tactical tool, and mainly restricted to ad hoc
social media posting
30%
27%
23%
We have a range of content marketing activities, but they are not properly
co-ordinated
32%
45%
45%
Content marketing activities are largely co-ordinated, but we do not yet have
strategic KPIs tied to business objectives
17%
20%
30%
We have a clear content marketing strategy aligned to business objectives, and
with full company leadership buy-in
Content Marketing
8 Maturity Report 2022 Introduction
The ContentCal model describes the journey

to maturity in five stages, each with the
associated mindset, staff resource, activity,
channels, technology, budget and outcomes.
FIGURE 3
Content Marketing Maturity Model
ContentCal content marketing maturity model
LEVEL FIVE
Amplified
There is organisation
LEVEL FOUR
wide visibilty of content
marketing. Input into
Strategic efforts is coming from
There is leadership across the business
visibilty of the content
LEVEL THREE
marketing efforts.
Content analysis is
Operational aligned with business
Content marketing is KPIs
now multi-channel and
LEVEL TWO
becomes core to
business communications
Team-based
LEVEL ONE The broader marketing
team works together
Tactical to align around social
media tactics
Individuals create content
to fulfil short term
objectives
Content Marketing
9
Section 2
Culture and objectives
The research for Content Marketing: Moving FIGURE 4

from Tactics to Strategy found that one of the
key factors in determining progress towards How do you measure the success of your content marketing
content marketing maturity is the attitude of activities?
senior leadership. Support from the leadership
team on its own is not enough to drive a more  Leaders
 Mainstream
strategic approach, a point well made by
Jake Smith, Head of Branded Content at Sift,
during a roundtable carried out as part of this 9%
research. “It’s very hard to take a step back 44%
and be as strategic as you’d want to be. The We use some metrics such as ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and ‘page views’
day job really can get in the way of being able
to be strategic, even in a business that truly 23%
believes in content,” he said.
39%
But even if it doesn’t guarantee a strategic We have a range of engagement metrics we use across different channels
approach, leadership buy-in is nonetheless
crucial to whether the content team has the 29%
status it needs within the organisation to play 12%
a truly strategic role. We have some strategic business KPIs to track the success of our content marketing
activities
The ContentCal maturity model defines
the final stage of the content marketing 39%
maturity journey (Amplification) as creating 5%
a culture where the wider organisation is All our content marketing activities and associated metrics ladder down from key
brought into the business’s content marketing business KPIs as part of our strategic content marketing plan
strategy, contributing both to the creation and
amplification of content. Particularly in B2B
companies, or those that market complex
products, the content team will require
expert help in creating high-quality content.
A number of interviewees for this research
described the difficulty in getting this help Leigh Davies
when it takes experts away from their day jobs General Manager - Marketing &
Communications, Comline UK
and doesn’t help them meet their own targets.
Partly this is determined by the organisation’s “The marketing department is fundamentally tasked with content
approach to measurement. Traditionally, generation, but that task undoubtedly becomes easier and more
marketing metrics have tended to be effective with wider contributions from across the business.
either channel-specific (e.g. likes, clicks) or However, in a busy organisation where people are rightly
department-specific (e.g. leads generated). In focused on their own workload, it is tough to nurture a collective
contrast, leaders create overall KPIs based on responsibility for content generation. It ultimately comes down to
the strategy of the business, and use these to resource and, despite the best of intentions, people often have too
ladder down from individual channel metrics much on their plate to consider how they might support content
(Figure 4). This is as true of content marketing marketing activity.”
as it is of all other marketing channels.
Content Marketing
10 Maturity Report 2022 Culture and objectives
Figure 5 shows that leaders are three-and- FIGURE 5

a-half times more likely than the mainstream
to ‘strongly’ agree they have a multichannel Proportion of organisations ‘strongly’ agreeing with these
content strategy aligned to the overall statements
business strategy (57% compared to 16%).
It also shows that leaders are four times  Leaders
 Mainstream
more likely to strongly agree there is good
visibility on content strategy and KPIs across
their business (39% compared to 9% for the 57%
mainstream), and that they are more than 16%

twice as likely to share content marketing We have a multichannel content strategy aligned to the overall business strategy
reporting and analytics on a regular basis
across the organisation (38% vs. 14%). 52%
29%
Senior leadership is fully bought into the value of content marketing
47%
17%
We use technology effectively to support our content marketing activities
39%
11%
As a business we have a clear understanding of the return on content marketing
investment
39%
9%
There is good visibility on content strategy and KPIs across the business
38%
14%
Content marketing reporting and analytics are shared on a regular basis across the
organisation
35%
25%
Leaders are four times more Ideas for content come from employees across the organisation, not just from
likely to strongly agree marketing
there is good visibility on 34%

16%
content strategy and KPIs We are increasing our content marketing budgets
across their business.
Content
The StateMarketing
of
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Culture and objectives
11
Widespread acceptance
of the strategic value of
content marketing hinges
on an understanding of
what it can achieve.
Content Marketing
Leaders are around twice as likely to strongly FIGURE 6

agree employees across their business are
trained in the use of social media (26% vs. 11%), Proportion of organisations ‘strongly’ agreeing with these
and that they have an employee advocacy statements
programme in place (13% vs. 7%).
 Leaders
 Mainstream
As a result of this, leaders are more likely to
strongly agree that ideas for content come
from employees across their organisation, not 57%
just from marketing, although the difference is 22%

perhaps less than might be expected (35% vs. We have an experienced content marketing team (or individual) to co-ordinate
25%, Figure 5). activities across marketing
26%
Upper-funnel benefits dominate
Widespread acceptance of the strategic 11%
value of content marketing also hinges on an Employees across the business are trained in the use of social media
understanding of what it can achieve (Figure
7). It’s noticeable that the most significant 13%
benefits respondents see are in the upper 7%
funnel. Increased awareness (chosen by We have an employee advocacy programme, to encourage and reward staff for
88% of client-side respondents) and better creating and distributing
customer engagement (83%) are significantly
more likely to be regarded as a main benefit
than improved sales (60%).
FIGURE 7
What do you see as the main benefits of content marketing?
88%
Building awareness of brands and products
83%
Better engagement and relationships with customers and key stakeholders
60%
Improved sales
59%
Greater customer loyalty
56%
Better PR
34%
Improved employee relations / greater employee engagement
33%
Reduced advertising costs
Survey respondents are 26%
most likely to recognise Reducing risk of reputational damage (e.g. social media firestorm)
upper-funnel benefits such 1%

as improved awareness of None of the above
brands and products (88%).
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Culture and objectives
13
Breaking these figures down by leaders and FIGURE 8

the mainstream (Figure 8) shows the expected
lag, with leaders more likely to recognise most What do you see as the main benefits of content marketing?
of the benefits.
 Leaders
 Mainstream
95%
86%
88%
82%
71%
58%
64%
58%
Improved sales
61%
55%
Better PR
40%
31%
32%
33%
Reduced advertising costs
Leaders are generally more
likely than the mainstream 30%
24%
to recognise content Reducing risk of reputational damage (e.g. social media firestorm)
marketing benefits.
Content Marketing
Comparing the figures by company size FIGURE 9

(Figure 9), there’s little difference in how
companies of all sizes rate most of the benefits What do you see as the main benefits of content marketing?
of content marketing. Bigger companies are
much more likely to value improved employee  Less than $5m annual revenues
relations than are smaller ones. Almost
 More than $50m annual revenues
half of the biggest companies (46%) rated
this as a major benefit, compared to a third
(32%) of medium-sized ones and a quarter 88%
of the smallest (26%). In contrast, reduced 95%
advertising costs were a main benefit for more 87%
than a third of the smallest companies (39%),
but only just over a quarter of the largest
(27%).
83%
85%
86%
60%
60%
64%
65%
65%
60%
Improved sales
60%
56%
58%
Better PR
26%
32%
46%
23%
20%
33%
Reducing risk of reputational damage (e.g. social media firestorm)
Almost half of larger
companies (46%) recognise 39%
improved employee 34%

27%
relations as a benefit of Reduced advertising costs
content marketing.
Content Marketing
15
Section 3
Resourcing
The level of resourcing an organisation FIGURE 10

puts behind its content marketing efforts is
a clear reflection of its maturity in the area. Proportion of organisations with designated content marketing
Companies at the beginning of their content budget for the following areas
marketing journey draw on existing budgets
to fund their activity. As they mature, they  Leaders
 Mainstream
add dedicated staff and technology, allocate
spend for a growing number of channels, and
employ agencies. 86%
61%
Figure 10 shows leaders are significantly Media (e.g. paid social)
more likely than their mainstream peers
to allocate budget to all the main areas of 80%
content marketing. However, it’s striking that
47%
mainstream spending levels are much closer
to those of leaders in two areas – media and Content creation
agencies – than in all the others.
78%
In other words, mainstream organisations are 48%
investing more heavily in buying media and Staff
in agencies compared to other areas. Both
of these are ways of delivering results more
71%
rapidly than building in-house content creation
38%
and distribution expertise, and are lower-
risk than buying in your own technology. Technology
This suggests mainstream companies have
recognised the benefits of content marketing 70%
and are looking to upgrade their activities as 33%
quickly as possible.
Content distribution
60%
36%
Agencies
In terms of dedicated
budget, the gaps between
mainstream companies and
leaders are the smallest
for media (61% vs. 86%) and
agencies (60% vs. 36%)
Content Marketing
16 Maturity Report 2022 Resourcing
Figure 11 shows the same data split by size of FIGURE 11

organisation. The largest are the most likely
to have a dedicated budget for each area, Proportion of organisations with designated content marketing
reflecting the greater likelihood of them being budget for the following areas
leaders.
 Less than $5m annual revenues
58%
67%
89%
Media (e.g. paid social)
45%
53%
72%
Content creation
45%
57%
68%
Staff
36%
52%
59%
Technology
31%
38%
64%
Content distribution
The largest companies 25%
are most likely to have 47%

65%
dedicated content marketing Agencies
budget across all areas.
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Resourcing
17
From part-time to dedicated staff FIGURE 12

The other major element of resourcing is staff.
According to the Maturity Model, companies Does your organisation have any employees dedicated to
move from the ‘Tactical’ stage, where content content marketing?
marketing is done part-time by people with
limited experience, adding dedicated staff at  Leaders
 Mainstream
the ‘Team-based’ stage, through to hiring a
more diverse skill set, and ultimately a content
marketing leader at the ‘Strategic’ stage. This 28%
is also typically where a specialist agency is 29%
engaged. Yes, we have an individual employee focused on content marketing
Figure 12 reinforces how leaders and the 53%

mainstream differ across these stages. 19%
Almost three times as many mainstream
Yes, we have a content marketing team (more than one person)
organisations as leaders say they have
no dedicated content marketing staff (52%
19%
compared to 19%). A similar proportion of both
groups employ a single dedicated content 52%
marketer (28% and 29%, respectively), but No, we don’t have anyone focused only on content marketing
leaders are far more likely to have a content
marketing team than their mainstream peers
(53% vs. 19%).
FIGURE 13
More than half of the biggest organisations
have a dedicated content marketing team Does your organisation have any employees dedicated to
(52%). That’s almost twice as many as their content marketing?
mid-sized counterparts (28%) and four times
as many as the smallest (12%). However, a  Less than $5m annual revenues
further quarter (28%) of the biggest companies
still don’t have anyone solely dedicated to
the discipline. That’s compared to 46% of
mid-sized businesses and 52% of small ones 36%
(Figure 13). 26%
20%
Yes, we have an individual employee focused on content marketing
12%
28%
52%
Yes, we have a content marketing team (more than one person)
52%
46%
28%
No, we don’t have anyone focused only on content marketing
More than a quarter (28%) of

the largest companies don’t
have anyone focused only
on content marketing.
Content Marketing
Section 4
Channels and activities
Progress to content marketing maturity FIGURE 14

typically includes adding more channels.
Companies tend to start with social media and What does content marketing include for your organisation?
gradually include email, events, PR, direct
messaging, third-party sites and influencers.
95%
The relative popularity of the different Social media (including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter)
channels can be seen in Figure 14. Social
media is almost ubiquitous (used by 95% of 87%
respondents), followed by the company’s own Website content
website (87%), email (81%), the company blog
(76%) and digital advertising (66%). 81%
Email
76%
Company blog / articles
66%
Digital advertising
62%
Video
58%
Events
56%
Case studies / testimonials
55%
PR / press releases
46%
Webinars
45%
Printed content
35%
Whitepapers / reports
24%
Podcasts
The use of social media 14%
(95%) for content marketing TV / radio advertising
is almost ubiquitous.
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Channels and activities
19
Surprisingly, when split by leaders and FIGURE 15

mainstream organisations, the channel
adoption figures seem not to show the What does content marketing include for your organisation?
correlation between the number of channels
and content marketing sophistication that the  Leaders
 Mainstream
Maturity Model suggests. Rather, the adoption
levels shown by leaders and the mainstream
are very similar, with a few exceptions (Figure 92%
15). Leaders are more likely to use digital 96%
advertising, video, case studies, reports and Social media (including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter)
podcasts than the mainstream are. Meanwhile
88%
they’re less likely to use social media and
print. But the consistent gap between leaders 88%
and the mainstream isn’t there. Website content
84%
67%
Digital advertising
83%
83%
Email
78%
74%
73%
60%
Video
69%
58%
Events
64%
57%
PR / press releases
59%
53%
49%
50%
Printed content
44%
43%
Webinars
43%
28%
Leaders are more likely Whitepapers / reports
to use digital advertising, 31%
video, case studies, reports 22%
and podcasts than the Podcasts
mainstream are. Meanwhile 23%
they’re less likely to use 14%

TV / radio advertising
social media and print.
Content Marketing
20 Maturity Report 2022 Channels and activities
However, the figures for B2B and B2C FIGURE 16

businesses show this is a far more important
factor in channel adoption (Figure 16). What does content marketing include for your organisation?
Unsurprisingly, social media is used by almost
everyone, but B2B companies are much  B2B
 B2C
more likely to be using additional channels,
particularly those further down the list.
98%
This doesn’t mean that B2B companies are 94%
significantly more likely to be leaders in Social media (including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter)
content marketing. Analysing the data in
93%
Figure 1 along these lines shows that a quarter
of B2B companies (25%) are leaders, roughly 81%
the same proportion as their B2C counterparts Website content
(22%). The conclusion here must be that
87%
many of the channels identified – such as
company blogs, case studies, webinars and 76%
whitepapers – are ones more commonly used Email
in B2B marketing than B2C.
87%
63%
77%
34%
67%
50%
Events
66%
67%
Digital advertising
65%
50%
PR / press releases
64%
60%
Video
62%
25%
Webinars
60%
9%
Whitepapers / reports
47%
50%
Printed content
32%
Social media is used by 17%
almost everyone, but B2B Podcasts
companies are much more 3%
likely to be using additional 21%

TV / radio advertising
channels.
Content Marketing
21
Many of the channels

identified – such as
company blogs, case
studies, webinars and
whitepapers – are ones
more commonly used in
B2B marketing than B2C.
Content Marketing
22 Maturity Report 2022 Channels and activities
Other influences on how companies use FIGURE 17

content marketing
Figure 17 looks at brands’ content marketing Does your brand’s or brands’ content marketing involve any of
activities rather than the channels they use, the following activities?
and shows how leaders and the mainstream
compare. The big differences are that leaders  Leaders
 Mainstream
are significantly more likely to create content
for internal communications (59% vs. 43%), and
to do social customer care (44% vs. 31%) than 59%
are mainstream organisations. 43%
Content for internal communications
There are also significant differences in leader
and mainstream use of influencer marketing 46%
(40% vs. 30%) and the use of buyer personas 35%
(46% vs. 35%). This suggests these are areas Use of buyer personas
which companies move into as they mature.
44%
31%
Social customer care
42%
39%
Community management
40%
30%
Use of influencer marketing
40%
37%
User-generated content
36%
33%
Social selling
35%
32%
Leaders are significantly Posting via employee personal profiles
more likely to create content 7%

10%
for internal communications None of the above
(59% vs. 43%).
Content Marketing
23
However, looked at from a B2B/B2C FIGURE 18

perspective the picture is very different (Figure
18). Content for internal communications, Does your brand’s or brands’ content marketing involve any of
posting via employees’ personal profiles the following activities?
and use of buyer personas are very much
the realm of B2B content marketers. User-  B2B
 B2C
generated content, social customer care,
community management and influencer
marketing are more popular in B2C marketing, 53%
while the two sides are roughly equal in their 36%
use of social selling. Content for internal communications
All of this again suggests that content 49%

marketing maturity is not one-size-fits-all, but 20%
depends on the needs of the organisation Posting via employee personal profiles
within an overall maturity journey.
47%
28%
Use of buyer personas
30%
32%
Social selling
27%
43%
Community management
25%
47%
User-generated content
20%
45%
Social customer care
15%
39%
Use of influencer marketing
10%
9%
None of the above
Content for internal

communications, posting
via employees’ personal
profiles and use of buyer
personas are very much
the realm of B2B content
marketers.
Content Marketing
Section 5
Technology
Advanced use of marketing technology is FIGURE 19

another hallmark of leaders in this discipline.
In Section 3, Figure 10 showed that three- What tools or technology do you use for planning and
quarters of leaders (71%) have a dedicated scheduling your content marketing activities?
budget for content marketing technology,
compared to just over a third (38%) of  Leaders
 Mainstream
mainstream organisations.
The research also found that almost all 69%
leaders (95%) agree that they use technology 62%

effectively to support their content marketing Social media management software (e.g. Buffer, Hootsuite)
activities, compared to less than three-
quarters (68%) of the mainstream. The 63%
difference is even more stark when looking
57%
at those who ‘strongly’ agree their use of
Excel
technology is effective; 47% of leaders
compared to 17% of mainstream companies
57%
(Figure 5).
34%
Use of specific tools Project management software (e.g. Asana, Basecamp, Monday, Trello)
Looking at the actual tools organisations use
to plan and schedule their content marketing 54%
activities shows the expected lag in take- 44%
up of more sophisticated and specialist
Google Docs
technology by the mainstream compared to
leaders (Figure 19). There is little difference
50%
between leaders and the mainstream in
the use of social media management tools 36%
(69% vs. 62%). This is to be expected as most Content calendar software (e.g. ContentCal)
organisations’ content marketing journey
begins with social media. Similarly, Excel is 36%
used almost equally by both groups (63% vs. 26%
57%), no doubt due to its ubiquity.
PowerPoint
The biggest difference is in the adoption

31%
of project management software, which is
used by more than half of leaders (57%), but 38%
only a third of the mainstream (34%). As with Native platforms (e.g. Facebook and LinkedIn)
more generic project management software,
content marketing leaders are significantly 16%
more likely to use calendar-based content 12%
marketing tools such as ContentCal
Other
which combine content and social media
management with project management
1%
features and functionality (50% vs. 36%).
7%
None of the above
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Technology
25
Comparing the software tools used for other FIGURE 20

aspects of content marketing shows a similar
pattern (Figure 20). Unsurprisingly, email Which other types of software do you use as part of your
is the most popular tool, and both groups content marketing activities?
are similarly likely to use it (83% of leaders
and 86% of the mainstream). The adoption  Leaders
 Mainstream
of social scheduling and publishing tools
was seen to be similarly high across both
groups. It’s therefore striking that leaders 83%
are so much more likely to be using social 86%

media monitoring tools than their mainstream Email
counterparts (74% vs. 47%).
74%
Some of the biggest gaps between leaders
47%
and the mainstream are in the use of content
Social media monitoring
management systems and marketing
automation software. This probably reflects
63%
a more general level of marketing maturity,
since these are typically enterprise-wide tools 40%
that encompass content marketing, rather Content management system (CMS)
than tools specific to content marketing. Their
use suggests content marketing is integrated 47%
within the broader marketing context, rather 35%
than being an adjunct.
Marketing automation
23%
13%
Paid media management software
19%
Leaders are much more 11%

Digital asset management (DAM)
likely to be using social
media monitoring tools 1%
than their mainstream 3%

Other
counterparts (74% vs. 47%).
Content Marketing
Section 6
Challenges
Section 2 noted that support from senior FIGURE 21

management is crucial for driving content
marketing maturity, but that it isn’t enough What do you see as your organisation’s biggest challenges
on its own. This is borne out by the findings around content marketing?
shown in Figure 21.
 Leaders
 Mainstream
Leaders are less likely to regard lack of
buy-in from leadership, or from the rest of the
organisation, as a challenge than mainstream 48%
organisations are. But what’s truly striking is 56%

how few of either group see these as problems Not enough resources / people
at all (11% of leaders, 12% of the mainstream
36%
and 9% of leaders, 14% of the mainstream,
respectively). 36%
Difficulty creating engaging content
Instead, the big challenges for both groups are
25%
the lack of resources and staff (48% of leaders,
56% of the mainstream), difficulty in creating 31%
engaging content (both 36%), measurement Measurement and attribution
and attribution (25% of leaders, 31% of the
25%
mainstream), and a focus on quantity of
content, rather than quality (25% of leaders, 18%
18% of the mainstream). Focus on quantity of content, rather than quality
20%
16%
Poor visibility around activities and performance
17%
22%
Lack of knowledge and training
12%
16%
Lack of understanding around customer / stakeholder requirements
11%
12%
Lack of leadership buy-in
9%
14%
Lack of resources and staff Lack of buy-in across the organisation
is the greatest challenge for 6%

41%
both leaders (48%) and the Lack of strategic plan
mainstream (56%).
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Challenges
27
These results correspond with the findings FIGURE 22

of the earlier London Research/ContentCal
report, Content Marketing: Moving from What do you see as your organisation’s biggest challenges
Tactics to Strategy. Almost all the content around content marketing?
marketers interviewed for that report agreed
that their senior management understood  Less than $5m annual revenues
content marketing and bought into the
benefits it could deliver, but still said they were
struggling with resourcing, measuring the
effectiveness of their work, and the emphasis 52%
placed on the quantity of content produced 62%
rather than its quality. 48%
Not enough resources / people
Hal Kimber 25%

Head of Product Marketing
TES 35%
39%
“The biggest challenge is attribution Measurement and attribution

of performance by channel, to then 16%
optimise accordingly. At the moment I
13%
can see page views, reads, form fills, but
they all come in different places. Ideally 31%
you’d have some form of real-time Focus on quantity of content, rather than quality
dashboard showing how your content
44%
is performing, where the inbound traffic
to that content is coming from, and 35%
then how that content is converting 29%
into leads. So I could say, across the 10 Difficulty creating engaging content
pieces of content I’ve got live this month,
three are really performing, two aren’t 38%
performing at all, and these ones in the 36%
middle, could they be made to work a 25%
bit harder? And I’d have that insight in a
Lack of strategic plan
much more useful timeframe.”
12%
16%
Interviewees also reported one of their
22%
biggest problems was having the time to
step back and think strategically about Lack of understanding around customer / stakeholder requirements
content marketing. This is also reflected in
24%
this new research, which shows mainstream
organisations notably struggle with the lack 17%
of a strategic plan – it’s their second biggest 20%

challenge (41%, compared to 6% of leaders). Lack of knowledge and training
Breaking these findings down by company 15%

size reveals some surprising differences 17%
(Figure 22). Lack of resources is the biggest 19%
problem for all sizes of organisation, but
Poor visibility around activities and performance
noticeably most for medium-sized companies.
Meanwhile the smaller the company, the 10%
more likely it is to have problems with 12%
creating engaging content and strategic
17%
planning. However, the reverse is true for
measurement and attribution, focusing on Lack of leadership buy-in
quantity of content, and lack of understanding 10%
of customer/stakeholder requirements. Bigger
16%
organisations are more likely to see each of
these cases as more challenging than their 14%
smaller peers. Lack of buy-in across the organisation
Content Marketing
28 Maturity Report 2022 Challenges
Much of this is most likely due to the fact that

smaller companies are less complex. They
have fewer brands, use fewer marketing
channels and are closer to their customers.
They may also simply have insufficient budget
to create large amounts of content, rendering
the whole ‘quantity versus quality’ debate
moot.
Vivien Underwood
Account Manager
Guild
“Because we’re a small team, we

talk about everything. Every piece of
content gets an okay, and everyone in
the team sees it and knows where it’s
being used and why, even if we don’t
really measure things that closely
at the moment. So when something
happens in the business, it’s very
easy to communicate that quickly to
the people who are going to convert
that into a piece of content and do
something useful with it. It’s such an
agile environment, but we have no
process for it. And as we grow, that
will be a challenge for us. There’ll be a
crunch point where we suddenly realise
we need the processes to catch up with
the people.”
Challenges don’t exist in isolation

Ultimately, of course, many of these
challenges are linked. Problems with
measurement and attribution make it hard to
establish which content is working for your
audience so you can create more of it. In
addition, if you can’t measure what’s working,
it’s all but impossible to show ROI, and in turn
win more resourcing. And it also increases
the emphasis on creating greater volumes of
content in the hope that something will pay
off, rather than focusing on what delivers the
most benefit.
Our research suggests there is a crucial step

in the journey to content marketing maturity
that involves converting senior management
backing into an in-depth understanding
of what can be achieved with a strategic
approach, and what is required to achieve it.
Content
The StateMarketing
of
Content Marketing
Maturity Report 2022 Challenges
29
A crucial step in the

journey to content
marketing maturity
involves converting
senior management
backing into an in-depth
understanding of what
can be achieved with
a strategic approach,
and what is required to
achieve it.
Content Marketing
Section 7
Key takeaways
Less than a quarter (23%) of companies believe they have

achieved content marketing maturity. Leaders have a clear
content marketing strategy aligned to business objectives, with
full leadership buy-in. They are also more likely to share their
content strategy, KPIs, results and analysis across the business,
to have a dedicated content marketing team, and to involve all
employees in their content marketing activities.
Content marketing leaders don’t all look alike. Some areas,
such as channel adoption and activities undertaken, are
influenced much more by whether companies operate in the
B2B or B2C space. The amount of budget dedicated to content
marketing – and how widely it’s spent – is much more likely to
depend on company size.
Winning senior management buy-in is no longer a barrier to
content marketing maturity. The real difficulty is translating
that backing into a strategic approach with appropriate
resourcing.
Spending money with agencies and on media are shortcuts
to better content marketing. They are key tactics mainstream
companies (i.e. non-leaders) are trying to improve their
performance.
Large companies are more likely to be leaders in content
marketing, but SMEs have their own advantages. Small
organisations appear to be better at measurement and
attribution, at focusing on quality content, and at understanding
the requirements of the customers and/or stakeholders.
Content Marketing
31
Appendix
Respondent profiles
FIGURE 23 FIGURE 24
In which business sector does your company In which country are you based?
operate?
9% 45%
Professional services
8% United Kingdom
Education
8%
18%
Financial services and insurance
7%
United States
Retail
7%
Healthcare / Medical / Pharmaceutical 37%
7%
Charity / Non-profit Other
5%
Food and beverage
5%
FIGURE 25
Service provider
4% Is your business focused primarily on business-to-
Manufacturing business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C)?
4%
Publishing and media
3% 30%
Advertising
2% B2B
Culture and entertainment
2% 29%
Sport and leisure
2% B2C
Construction
2% 41%
Travel
2%
Mix of B2B and B2C
Telecommunications
2%
Government and local authority
2%
Logistics and transportation
2%
Engineering
1%
Property
1%
Environmental
15%
Other
Content Marketing Appendix
32 Maturity Report 2022 Respondent profiles
FIGURE 26 FIGURE 27
What is your annual company revenue? What is your level of seniority within the business?
63% 22%
Below $5 Million Manager
19% 13%
$5 Million - $49 Million Executive
5% 12%
$50 Million - $99 Million Head of department
4% 11%
$100 Million - $249 Million C-level
2% 10%
$250 Million - $499 Million Director
2% 7%
$500 Million - $999 Million Managing director
5% 7%
$1 Billion plus Senior management
4%
Administrator
2%
Supervisor
12%
Other
Content Marketing Appendix
Maturity Report 2022 Respondent profiles
33
FIGURE 28
Which business function do you work in?
60%
Marketing
13%
Digital
4%
Customer service
4%
Sales
3%
Editorial
2%
Ecommerce
1%
HR
13%
Other
Content Marketing
About the authors
Michael Nutley
Digital Media and Marketing Journalist
Michael is a London Research writer specialising in digital media and

marketing. He was head of content for London Research sister company
Digital Doughnut between 2012 and 2016, and during that time edited
the European channel of Adobe’s CMO.com website. Before that he
was editor of New Media Age, the UK’s leading news publication for
interactive business from 2000 to 2007, and its editor-in-chief from 2007
to 2011. He has written widely about the sector, is a regular speaker in
the media and on the conference circuit, and has lectured on the future
of advertising and publishing at the London College of Communications.
Linus Gregoriadis
Director, London Research
Linus is an experienced digital marketing analyst and business writer

who co-founded London Research in 2017 as a sister company to
Digital Doughnut, the world’s largest community of marketers and
digital professionals, and also to Demand Exchange, an advanced
B2B lead generation platform. He spent more than a decade setting up
and building the research function at Econsultancy, a digital research
and training company now owned by Centaur Media. After leaving
Econsultancy, where he oversaw the production of hundreds of survey-
based trends reports, buyers’ guides and best practice guides, he
launched ClickZ Intelligence for B2B media company Contentive.
Content Marketing
35
About us
London Research, set up by former Econsultancy research director Linus

Gregoriadis, is focused on producing research-based content for B2B
audiences. We are based in London, but our approach and outlook are
very much international. We work predominantly, but not exclusively,
with marketing technology (martech) vendors and agencies seeking
to tell a compelling story based on robust research and insightful data
points.
As part of Communitize Ltd, we work closely with our sister companies

Digital Doughnut (a global community of more than 1.5 million marketers)
and Demand Exchange (a lead generation platform), both to syndicate
our research and generate high-quality leads.
G E T I N TO U C H
ContentCal is an easy-to-use, all-in-one content and social marketing

platform, where you can plan, create, collaborate and publish all of your
content.
Direct integration with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google

My Business make ContentCal the best social media assistant you ever
had. Its inbuilt analytics will even show you how well your content is
performing across all of your channels and against your competitors.
ContentCal’s Contribution forms allow you to source new ideas from all
across your business and customer base. Customisable workflows and
approvals make it quick and easy for you to collect feedback and sign off
from within the platform.
You can set up an individual planning channel for every type of content
you produce from events and emails, to social posts and blogs and then
use the Articles feature to draft out and publish your long form content too.
BOOK A DEMO

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Content Marketing

ContentCal was created in response to constant content

Content marketing has become such an integral part of the

Other key findings include:

approach with appropriate resourcing.

Looking at this data by company size shows FIGURE 1

We have a clear content marketing strategy aligned to business objectives, and

Almost a third (30%) of FIGURE 2

The ContentCal model describes the journey

Culture and objectives

The research for Content Marketing: Moving FIGURE 4

Figure 5 shows that leaders are three-and- FIGURE 5

mainstream), and that they are more than 16%

there is good visibility on 34%

Leaders are around twice as likely to strongly FIGURE 6

just from marketing, although the difference is 22%

What do you see as the main benefits of content marketing?

Building awareness of brands and products

Better engagement and relationships with customers and key stakeholders

Greater customer loyalty

Improved employee relations / greater employee engagement

Reduced advertising costs

Survey respondents are 26%

upper-funnel benefits such 1%

Breaking these figures down by leaders and FIGURE 8

Comparing the figures by company size FIGURE 9

improved employee 34%

The level of resourcing an organisation FIGURE 10

Figure 11 shows the same data split by size of FIGURE 11

The largest companies 25%

are most likely to have 47%

From part-time to dedicated staff FIGURE 12

Figure 12 reinforces how leaders and the 53%

More than a quarter (28%) of

Channels and activities

Progress to content marketing maturity FIGURE 14

Company blog / articles

Case studies / testimonials

Surprisingly, when split by leaders and FIGURE 15

and podcasts than the Podcasts

mainstream are. Meanwhile 23%

they’re less likely to use 14%

However, the figures for B2B and B2C FIGURE 16

almost everyone, but B2B Podcasts

companies are much more 3%

likely to be using additional 21%

Many of the channels

Other influences on how companies use FIGURE 17

Leaders are significantly Posting via employee personal profiles

more likely to create content 7%

However, looked at from a B2B/B2C FIGURE 18

All of this again suggests that content 49%

Content for internal

Advanced use of marketing technology is FIGURE 19

The research also found that almost all 69%

leaders (95%) agree that they use technology 62%

The biggest difference is in the adoption

Comparing the software tools used for other FIGURE 20

are so much more likely to be using social 86%

Leaders are much more 11%

than their mainstream 3%

Section 2 noted that support from senior FIGURE 21

organisations are. But what’s truly striking is 56%