Content marketing makes itself felt

A recent report by Waggener Edstrom has revealed that communication professionals are seeing a high return on investment from implementing a content marketing strategy.

The study, ‚’Content Marketing: Puncturing the Hype and Getting Practical’, found that of the 82 percent of organisations with a content marketing strategy, over 90 percent see it having a significant business impact through increasing web traffic and sales leads.

The report, based on a survey of over 160 marketing and communication professionals with decision-making responsibilities across France, Germany, South Africa and United Kingdom, examines the perceptions of content marketing and the potential impact it can have on a business’ growth. Key findings include:

· The majority (85 percent) of communication professionals currently using a content marketing strategy do so to promote awareness of their brand, closely followed by increasing engagement with customers (79 percent) and generating sales leads (77 percent)

· 70 percent of marketers understand that content marketing helps drive sales leads more effectively, but 18 percent still have no plans to implement a strategy and over one third (38 percent) still question whether it can deliver measurable ROI

· A lack of staff resources was identified as the number one challenge in implementing an effective content marketing strategy (63 percent), closely followed by lack of budget (48 percent) and lack of content creation expertise (41 percent)

· 79 percent believe a strong content marketing strategy will help them use social media more effectively, followed by video and animation (70 percent) and news articles (62 percent)

The report also reveals that businesses are setting metrics to track success and prove the value of good content. Over three quarters (83 percent) measure the effectiveness of content through web traffic, while 63 percent measure through media coverage and just over half (53 percent) through click analysis.

Ricardo Adame, corporate vice president of global communications at AVG Technologies, commented ‚”Measurement has always been key to demonstrating success of communications and marketing programmes, but I would argue that particularly for content marketing there is an opportunity to be even more accurate. By defining our metrics carefully and building in additional measures to provide context, a detailed picture is created that enables us to measure the ROI after a campaign has completed and adjust our approach during its lifespan to achieve maximum impact.‚”

Chris Talago, executive vice president and general manager EMEA at Waggener Edstrom, said: ‚”Content marketing offers a way to engage your audiences and proves your business’ worth as a trusted source of information. It has had a transformative effect on the way brands reach and retain their customers, but with so many voices, getting to grips with content marketing best practice is not easy. Our research suggests that businesses are starting to understand the potential ROI content marketing can generate, but before this impact is fully realized, factors including budget and staffing need to be addressed.‚”

The full results of the content marketing survey can be found here. The South Africa sample included responses from members of Public Relations Institute of South Africa (PRISA).

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