New Research Shows 92 Percent of Nonprofits Use Content Marketing

(Press release, Nov. 14, 2013) — The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and Blackbaud have released the findings from a first-time study that shows how nonprofit professionals in North America approach content marketing. The study shows that 92 percent of nonprofit professionals use content marketing. Ninety-one percent use Facebook to distribute content, and 65 percent are producing more content than they were one year ago.

In addition, 69 percent of nonprofit organizations have someone in place who oversees content marketing, but only 25 percent have a documented content strategy. Overall, just 26 percent say they are effective at content marketing, the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple media formats to attract and/or retain clients/constituents.

"Forty-five percent of nonprofit professionals are challenged with a lack of knowledge and training about content marketing, compared with 26 percent of for-profit marketers," says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the CMI and author of the book "Epic Content Marketing." "As more nonprofit professionals become better educated on content marketing, we hope to see more of them develop documented content strategies and grow in confidence with their effectiveness."

"This research gives nonprofit professionals the opportunity to look at what their peers are doing in order to get ideas for their own content marketing programs," says Frank Barry, director of digital marketing at Blackbaud. "For instance, many nonprofit professionals who use in-person events and e-newsletters say those content marketing tactics are very effective. Anyone not using those tactics might be inclined to take another look."

2014 Nonprofit Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America was produced by CMI and Blackbaud and sponsored by FusionSpark Media Inc. The survey was mailed electronically to a sample of nonprofit marketers from lists provided by CMI, Blackbaud, MarketingProfs and Brightcove. A total of 1,714 nonprofit professionals from North American organizations responded in July and August 2013, representing a full range of industries, functional areas and organization sizes. The full report can be downloaded here.