Carmel Ventures

Analysis from Outbrain and Econsultancy sheds new light on fast-growing discipline

Outbrain, in partnership with Econsultancy, havereleased an in-depth study on content marketing that looks at the strategies, objectives, and challenges involved in the fast-growing field. With more than 90% of respondents predicting that content marketing will increase in importance over the next 12 months, the findings overwhelmingly point to the discipline’s mounting importance.  Despite this, the majority of companies do not have a content strategy, dedicated budget or dedicated individual in place. The study, conducted in July and August of 2012, is based on a global survey of more than 1,300 digital marketing professionalsworking for brands, publishers and agencies. Key findings from the report include:

While content marketing is growing in importance and is increasingly seen as its own discipline, the majority of companies do not have a defined content strategy

●    More than 90% of respondents believe that content marketing will become more important over the next 12 months.
●    Two-thirds of in-house marketers (64%) agree that content marketing is becoming its own discipline
●    Less than half of companies have dedicated budgets (34%) or dedicated individuals (46%) for content marketing, though 55% of in-house and 58% of agency respondents are planning content marketing strategies in the future
●    Less than half of all companies spend more than 20% of their marketing budget on content, despite the fact that only 12% disagree with the statement that “content marketing is more effective than advertising in driving sales”
Content marketing and social media are inextricably linked
●    83% of in-house marketers use social posts and updates for marketing, more than any other type of content
●    Social network engagement is the most popular tactic used to drive traffic, with 78% of in-house respondents stating that their company used this
●    Social posts and updates are the second most effective type of content for in-house marketers after email, with 46% stating that this is one of their three most effective types of content

Resources, budget and politics are major barriers to effective content marketing

The barriers preventing effective content marketing which were listed most frequently by in-house marketers were:
●    Lack of human resources (42%)
●    Lack of budget (35%)
●    Company politics (30%)

Agency respondents were more likely to cite:
●    Lack of understanding / training as a main barrier (46%)
●    Content marketing skills (39%)
●    Lack of ROI / no business case (35%)

For more information or a complimentary copy of the report please contact Outbrain directly "> This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

About Econsultancy

Econsultancy is a global independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and e-commerce, and used by over 400,000 internet professionals every month. Our hub has 130,000+ members worldwide from clients, agencies and suppliers alike with over 90% member retention rate. We help our members build their internal capabilities via a combination of research reports and how-to guides, training and development, consultancy, face-to-face conferences, forums and professional networking. Econsultancy has offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and Dubai and we are a leading provider of digital marketing training and consultancy. We are providing consultancy and custom training in the Middle East, and extensively across Europe and Asia. We trained over 5,000 marketers and ran over 200 public training courses in 2011.

About Outbrain

An AOP Associate member, Outbrain, the leading content discovery platform, is on a mission to help readers find the most interesting content online, while giving publishers and brands the ability to reach a highly engaged audience. Using personalised links, Outbrain recommends content across a network of more than 700 premium publishers, including The Telegraph, Sky News, Future Publishing, CNN, Fox News, Hearst, and MSNBC. Links to content on a publisher’s own site increase stickiness, while links to high-quality third-party content increase site traffic and generate revenue. Outbrain is currently installed on more than 70,000 sites and generates more than 50 billion recommendations per month. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in New York, with 15 offices globally, including the U.S., U.K., Israel, Singapore and Australia.