Marketers may wish they had a magic wand to help them deliver the volumes of engaging, compelling content with speed without compromising on quality—new B2C content marketing research reveals that 86% of companies are investing in content marketing, 73% plan to produce more original content and 42% plan to increase their content marketing budget. But marketers struggling with content marketing programs cited content-creation challenges, lack of time and lack of strategy as their top three issues, according to new research from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs. Meanwhile, 77% of marketers who said their programs were more successful attribute it to higher quality and more efficient content creation.
The firms recently released the highly-cited report, B2C Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America, which was sponsored by creative collaboration application Hightail.
“Content marketers are struggling to keep up with the demands of their jobs. They must consistently produce the breakthrough creative which power their existing and new content programs. The survey results reveal that a majority of marketers still struggle with the creative development process and it is hurting their program’s results,” said Deborah Holstein, VP of marketing at Hightail, in a news release. “We are excited help bring these insights to light as it’s more important than ever for marketers to find ways to streamline their creative review and approval cycles to speed their content to market.”
Other key findings:
- 77% attribute increase in their content marketing’s overall success to higher quality, more efficient content creation
- For those struggling with success, top issues include strategy (49%), not enough time devoted (48%) and content-creation challenges (37%)
- Almost half (49%) rely only on a small (or one person) content marketing team to serve the entire organization
- 69% agree that their organizations value creativity/craft in content creation and production
- 76% of companies with a strategy say it includes a plan to operate content marketing as an ongoing business process not simply a campaign
- 73% plan to create more content in 2017 than 2016; while 54% say that content marketing has become a greater priority
- 78% use analytical tools while only 15% use collaborative workflow software
“Forty-eight percent of B2C marketers who reported that the success of their organization’s overall content marketing approach has been stagnant over the last year attribute it to not enough time devoted to content marketing,” said Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, and author of four content marketing books including Content Inc., in the release. “There are many things marketers can do to get better results with the time that they do have available; for example, they can document their content marketing strategy, put systems in place that promote good communication among their team members, and prioritize what’s working over what’s not.”
The seventh annual study reports on the 480 B2C marketers in North America who took the content marketing survey, which generated 2,562 responses from marketers around the globe representing a full range of industries and a wide range of company sizes.
Source: Marketwired; edited by Richard Carufel
