Content Is Expensive, and Other Obvious Facts

Here is a fact so obvious it is easy to overlook: nurturing programmes eat content. Do the arithmetic on a fairly basic programme and the number is startling.

The content multiplication table

Take a programme with four lead stages and three nurturing steps per stage. That is twelve emails at minimum, plus the white papers, webinars, worksheets and other offers that each email promotes. Now add versions for three buyer personas across four vertical markets. You are well past a hundred items before you have written a single social post or sales follow-up.

Not every combination needs a unique asset, and good teams reuse a core piece with different framing. But the order of magnitude is right, and it is why a nurturing model should be costed before it is approved.

What content costs compared with software

Few budget surveys break out content creation precisely. Research by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs in the early 2010s suggested that about a quarter of B2B marketing budgets went on content marketing overall, with much more spent on distribution than on creation. On those figures, creating content alone took a mid-single-digit share of the total marketing budget, against perhaps one or two per cent for marketing automation licences at the time. In other words, content typically cost several times more than the software that sends it, and distribution cost more than both.

Averages hide a lot. Smaller companies spend a much larger share of their budget on creation; larger ones can spread it further. Companies with a library of existing material can repurpose it cheaply. And costs are front-loaded at the start of each programme. Today, AI tools have made first drafts cheaper, but expert review, original research and design still cost real money, and generic content performs poorly.

Content mapping keeps the bill under control

The way to spend less is to spend deliberately. Map every planned asset to a persona and a buying stage, then look for gaps and overlaps before commissioning anything:

• Early stage: problem-focused, brand-agnostic education.
• Middle stage: frameworks, comparisons, calculators and peer evidence.
• Late stage: implementation detail, business cases, references.

Why iGaming suppliers pay even more per asset

For B2B companies that sell to casino and betting operators, the multiplication table has an extra column: jurisdiction. A platform provider's case study or product sheet may need versions for Great Britain, the Netherlands, Ontario, several US states and Latin American markets, each checked against what that regulator allows suppliers and operators to say. A games studio's release kit must reflect which titles are certified in which markets. The same asset can easily be produced five or six times.

That is why the strongest suppliers build modular content, a core story with jurisdiction-specific blocks, and plan their heaviest production around the trade-show calendar, when operators' attention is highest. We describe that market in iGaming B2B marketing and the rules that shape it in compliance-aware marketing in regulated gambling markets.

Bottom line

There is no standard figure for content cost when you deploy marketing automation, but it is safe to assume it will be substantial. Put it in the budget from day one, map before you make, and reuse wherever the buyer will not notice the seams.