First-Ever Research on B2B Marketing Ideation: Stats, Insights, Data

3 minute read

Upland Admin

Today we’re releasing some very interesting new data on B2B marketing ideation.

Ideation is a key component of any marketing strategy. As our research points out:

99% of marketers say a steady stream of ideas is central to their success as marketers.

But how many marketing departments do you know with a solid process for managing ideas? My guess? Not many.

Often, coming up with new ideas for fresh campaigns is one of those tasks you—as a creative marketer—would love to spend more time on, but never seem to get the chance.

Maybe it’s time to reconsider that time allocation. With streamlined processes for ideation that can be baked directly into your workflow, good ideation can:

  • Provide your company with fresh content that truly activates buyers
  • Galvanize other departments to suggest ideas
  • Keep your editorial pipeline full and plush
  • Free up time for higher quality execution of ideas for better results

Check out these 23 statistics that came from our report.

(Or flip through the full, free research.)

B2B marketers need, on average 67 ideas per quarter to be successful in marketing. (source)

39% of marketers say coming up with ideas is “difficult” or “somewhat difficult.” (source)

1 in 2 marketers don’t have enough ideas to fuel their content marketing. (source)

2 in 3 marketers want to be able to “crowdsource” ideas more easily from internal workers. (source)

48% of marketers say they have enough ideas to fuel their marketing. (source)

99% of marketers say a constant steady stream is crucial to effective marketing. (source)

Content drives most marketing channels. More than ⅔ of marketers say content is the fuel behind social media, digital marketing, demand gen, marketing communications, event marketing, PR, sales enablement, and product marketing. (source)

  • 87% of marketers say social media marketing success relies on content.
  • 79% of marketers say digital marketing success relies on content.
  • 77% of marketers say demand generation success relies on content.
  • 75% of marketers say marcom success relies on content.
  • 69% of marketers say marketing event success relies on content.
  • 68% of marketers say PR success relies on content.
  • 68% of marketers say sales enablement success relies on content.
  • 66% of marketers say product marketing success relies on content.

B2B marketers estimate the average blog post takes 4-5 hours to complete, taking into account time spent on ideation, production, design, and approval steps. (source)

11% of marketers say a blog post takes 10+ hours to create. (source)

Creating a blog isn’t a 30-minute task. It’s more like 5 hours. (source)

  • It takes companies of 1-5K employees 5.3 hours to complete a blog post.
  • It takes companies of 5-10K employees 6.9 hours to complete a blog post.
  • It takes companies of 10-20K employees 5.4 hours to complete a blog post.
  • It takes companies of 20K+ employees 5.9 hours to complete a blog post.

80% of C-level staff think they have enough ideas to fuel marketing efforts, but those in the weeds know better. Only 36% of managers report having a good process for gathering ideas. (source)

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