Although business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketers have been more successful with their efforts this year than they were last year, many still need to slow down to give their content marketing more time—to ensure even better results via longer-term planning.

That's a key finding of the just-published B2C Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report from MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute, a UBM company. Sponsored by Hightail, the B2C study is in its fifth year. We released the companion report, on business-to-business (B2B) content marketing, at the end of September.

We'll be talking more about the study findings in the months to come. But, for now, let's look at some key insights from the B2C content marketing report.

B2C Content Marketing Study Highlights

• Some 63% of B2C marketers consider their organization's overall approach to content marketing much more or somewhat more successful than one year ago.
• However, 23% of B2C marketers said their overall success was about the same as a year ago, and the top two reasons they cited are strategy issues (49%) and not enough time devoted to content marketing (48%).
• B2C marketers who reported more successful content marketing efforts than a year ago attribute their success to doing a better job with content creation (77%) and developing or adjusting their content marketing strategy (71%).
• 40% of B2C marketers have a documented content marketing strategy.
• 69% of B2C marketers agree that their organization is realistic about what content marketing can achieve.
• 78% of B2C marketers agree that they/their team can demonstrate, with metrics, how content marketing has increased audience engagement.

Below, the report's chapter headings and a single chart from each chapter:

B2C Content Marketing Usage and Team Organization

Clarity, Commitment, and Overall Success of B2C Content Marketing