According to reports on North American B2B Content Marketing conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs, 8% of public relations and marketing companies are effective at content marketing. Only 35% actually have a documented content marketing strategy, yet 54% complain about not having enough engaging content. A higher percentage of companies complain about procrastinating on creating effective content marketing strategies. With marketing trends favoring more personal experiences for consumers, the numbers are showing that some companies are struggling with this change mostly because they are earnestly trying to apply outdated methods. Here are some of the ways to ensure your content marketing strategy aligns with the needs of your client.
Document your content marketing strategy
Most companies have some form of plan, and an idea of how content marketing efforts fit into it, but most companies also don’t document and follow their strategies closely. More companies (33%) are unsure of how successful their returns on investments are than those that are (5%), with 15% not tracking ROI at all.
Take advantage of actionable opportunities
Research shows that 92% of companies target social media among their primary marketing tactics, yet only 32% rank it as effective. Other popular forms of marketing tactics that are widely used, yet rank pretty low in effectiveness, are offline promotion tactics (posters, billboards, fliers, etc.), and banner ads. Try taking advantage of engaging, actionable opportunities such as Webinars and eBooks. Both rank in the top 10 list of effective marketing tactics, yet are among the least often used. Utilizing an action-oriented approach creates a more personalized experience by making a customer feel they are included in the decision-making process.
Make content marketing a priority
A lot of companies say that producing engaging content that focuses on the customer is the hardest marketing challenge, yet they refuse to allocate the necessary resources to make it work. The problem with a lot of marketing companies is that they don’t have a solid team dedicated specifically to content marketing. A quarter of all companies spend less than 10% of their marketing budget on content marketing, while nearly another quarter are unsure of how much they spend. This means that almost half of all marketing companies in the United States are not documenting and using what resources they have correctly.
