Marketing needs to be driven by data. Without evaluating past successes or failures, it’s impossible to move from guesswork and hunches to a foolproof strategy. After all, numbers don’t lie. That’s why we’ve compiled some of the latest marketing statistics for your 2020 plan. Today, we’re highlighting what you need to know about email marketing, SEO, and content marketing.

Email Marketing Statistics

Is email marketing a thing of the past? Not at all. Let’s look at some key email marketing statistics here:

    • The average email subscriber receives 13 commercial emails a day (Oberlo).

 

    • On average, every $1 spent on email marketing results in a return of $42 (DMA).

 

    • Across all industries, the average open rate of emails is 17.8%, while the average click-to-open rate is 14.3% (Campaign Monitor).

 

    • The industries with the highest open rates are Government (30.5%), Nonprofits (25.2%), and Education (23.4%) (Campaign Monitor).

 

    • The industries with the highest click-through rates are Government (4.1%), Real Estate, Design and Construction Activities (3.6%), and Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting (3.5%) (Campaign Monitor).

 

For a comprehensive breakdown by each industry that you can use to benchmark your company’s performance, refer to Campaign Monitor’s guide here.

  • The day of the week with the highest email open rates is Tuesday, which has an 18.3% open rate (Campaign Monitor).

In what format or scenarios do people tend to check their emails?

    • Mobile opens accounted for 46% of all email opens (Litmus).

 

Given that mobile usage accounts for nearly half of all opens, we strongly suggest using email templates that are compatible with mobile devices.

SEO Marketing Statistics

Why and how should you invest in SEO? These key marketing statistics give you a picture of the current state of the industry.

    • 67% of all clicks go to the first five organic results. The results in the 6th-10th position receive only 4% of all clicks (Zero Limit Web).

 

    • 51% of all content consumption comes from organic search (Kuno Creative).

 

    • 70% of marketers say SEO is more effective at driving sales than PPC (Databox).

 

This is all fantastic news. However, before you start typing away, you should also know this:

    • Optimizing old blog posts for SEO can increase monthly organic search views by 106% (HubSpot).

 

Before creating new content from scratch, take a look at your page’s existing content and see whether it is SEO-friendly. As opposed to creating entirely new content, optimizing old pages can save you a great deal of time. 

And, last but not least, remember that…

    • 91% of content gets no organic traffic from Google, and 5.29% of pages get only 10 visits or less per month (Ahrefs).

 

Be wary of writing blogs simply for the sake of writing them. Keep SEO best practices top of mind at all times.

Content Marketing Statistics

Is content the backbone of marketing? After all, everything about your brand is made known to the public through content on your website, ads, social media, and more. Above all, inbound leads oftentimes come directly from content! Here are the content marketing statistics you should know:

    • 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority (HubSpot).

 

    • Marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13 times more likely to see positive ROI (HubSpot).

 

And if you think that people don’t read anymore, think again.

    • The optimal blog post length is between 1,000 and 1,500 words (Databox). Long-form blog posts generate 9 times more leads than short-form posts (Curata). 

 

However, we encourage long-form content only when there’s valuable information to be shared. No one likes to read a repetitive blog post.

And what about visual content?

    • Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search results than plain text (Omnicore).

 

    • 72% of consumers use video to learn about a product instead of reading a user manual (Impact).

 

    • 95% of users watch an explainer video to learn more about a product or service (Impact).

 

If you have the budget, video content is an extremely effective way of reaching audiences in an accessible way. Moreover, you can proudly share a single explainer video about your brand or product in multiple ways, such as on the website, emails, social media, and more.

    • Speaking of emails, adding videos to your email can increase click rates by 300% (Martech Advisor).

 

    • The biggest challenges for content marketing are reportedly lack of data and lack of strategy (DMA).

 

How you can use data to craft your marketing strategy

We live in a world of data. But the main obstacle of large datasets is extracting valuable information that can help you achieve your business goals. For today’s marketers, data can help companies uncover audience interests, design hyper-personalized outreach strategies, and create strong SEO content that drives ROI. Learn more about you can leverage data for your brand from our report on sports influencers and athletic brands here.