In the past few years brands have really started to pour on the content. And many are brewing up great results. According to Ascend2’s “Content Marketing Trends Survey Summary Report,” 63% of professionals (including marketing, sales, and business employees) consider their content marketing somewhat successful at achieving important objectives. What’s more, 26% consider their efforts very successful.
When it comes to content marketing objectives, professionals have a wide assortment. Enhancing customer engagement (52%), lead generation (52%), and brand awareness (44%) are respondents’ prime objectives; these are followed by bettering sales revenue (38%), lead nurturing (32%), Web traffic (28%), customer retention (26%), and SEO rankings (19%). And, some organizations are upping their content marketing budgets to keep their results piping hot. According to the report, nearly half of respondents (48%) say their content marketing budgets are increasing. But content marketing dollars aren’t spilling over for everyone; 44% of respondents say that their budgets are staying the same and 8% claim that their dollars are decreasing.
Those who are investing in content marketing are seeing varied results. Articles and case studies are the most effective forms of content, according to 54% of respondents, followed by videos (46%), infographics (43%), and research or whitepapers (36%). Webinars (30%), e-newsletters (28%), photos and illustrations (24%), and news releases (10%) were considered less effective. In terms of measuring their content’s performance, professionals surveyed primarily rely on conversion rate (50%), quality of leads (45%), and Website traffic (42%). However, others determine their content’s effectiveness in terms of number of leads (37%), sales revenue (30%), subscriber list growth (27%), social media sharing (27%), and search engine rankings (17%). And don’t think for a minute that a raised pinkie is the only finger lifting marketers are willing to do when it comes to content creation. Only 10% of respondents consider outsourcing their content creation to a specialist as the most effective resource. Fifteen percent say in-house content creation is the best way to go, and 75% rely on a combination of the two.
However, brands still face challenges and a spoonful of sugar can’t always sweeten the situation. Lack of content creation resources (53%), effective strategy (42%), and budget (40%), are marketers top qualms; these are followed by an inability to measure effectiveness (33%), integrate across channels (27%), develop employees’ skills (25%), produce a variety of content types (24%), and receive management support (15%). And some forms of content are more difficult to create than others. For instance, 59% of professionals consider videos the most challenging form of content to create. Other complex content forms include webinars and online events (50%), research and whitepapers (50%), infographics (34%), and articles or case studies (31%). E-newsletters (13%), photos and illustrations (8%), and news releases were viewed as less daunting (6%).
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