Content Marketing Adoption Among Nonprofits [INFOGRAPHIC]

It's clear that content marketing has been widely adopted in the for-profit realm, but how far behind do nonprofits lag, if at all?

Recently, I surveyed Bloomerang's database of over 8,000 nonprofit organizations nationwide to gauge their content marketing efforts. The results of the survey can be found in the infographic below:

The Data:

• 86.23% of respondents are familiar with the term “content marketing.”
• 76.62% of respondents consider content marketing valuable to their fundraising efforts.
  • 0.78% do not believe it is valuable
  • 22.60% aren't sure
• 58.44% of respondents only have 1-2 staff members involved in creating content, and most spend 1-6 hours per week creating content.
• Only 30.13% of respondents are measuring the success of their content marketing efforts.
• 68.31% of respondents plan on increasing their content marketing activities in 2014.

Key Takeaways:

Email, print and social media are prevelant.

Most nonprofits surveyed seem to have no problem generating content in the form of status updates and tweets, while email newsletters and print material are ubiquitous. Considering the high costs of printing and postage, and diminishing organic visibility on Facebook, email might be the most effective channel with the widest adoption.

Blogging and video are gaining steam, but advanced content still elusive.

36.88% of respondents are blogging while 49.87% are producing videos of some kind. Very few, however are creating advanced content like infographics and eBooks.

Manpower, budget and direction are major barriers to entry.

Among those who aren't creating content, nearly 40% cited a lack of manpower as the reason. 23.57% don't have the budget and 20.97% aren't sure what to create content about. This is little surprise since nonprofits are typically understaffed and overworked. Perhaps the new LinkedIn Volunteer Marketplace could help alleviate these issues.

Measurement is lacking.

Almost 70% of respondents who are creating content aren't measuring its effectiveness. This is perhaps the most alarming statistic of the study. A lack of ROI doesn't seem to discourage, however, as nearly 70% plan on ramping up their content efforts this year.

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