The majority of Australian marketers have admitted their content marketing is mediocre, according to new research. The study, conducted by the Content Marketing Institute in conjunction with King Content and ADMA, Content Marketing in Australia: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends, found 51% of Australian marketers consider the effectiveness of their content marketing strategies as average, with only 33% saying their content marketing is 'effective'.
The survey found about half of firms use a mixture of internal and external resources, which suggests that content marketing providers bear some responsibility for the average nature of the output.
Despite the increasing focus on social channels, the survey suggested newsletters were the most effective channel.
Spend, resource, goals
Australian marketers are currently spending just over a quarter (27%) of their budgets on content marketing, and more than two thirds (69%) are planning to increase that investment in the next 12 months. Of that 69%, 16% plan to 'significantly' increase their spend, with the remaining 53% saying they will 'increase' their content marketing budgets. The 27% figure is slightly less than North American marketers, who spend 29% of their budgets on content marketing, and UK marketers, who spend 31%.
The research revealed that content marketing is a priority area for brands, with 93% already using it as part of their marketing mix, while 74% of Australian companies have a dedicated person overseeing their content marketing strategy. Brand awareness was cited as the top content marketing goal (80%), followed by engagement (72%), lead generation (68%), customer acquisition (65%), customer retention/loyalty (62%) and website traffic (58%). While a documented content strategy was found to be key, with 80% of the 'most effective' content marketers having one in place, only 53% of those surveyed actually had a documented content strategy.
Context is king
King Content founder and chief executive Craig Hodges said: "The findings of this research report come as no real surprise to our team. There's no doubt that a strategic content marketing approach delivers better results for marketers. It’s not about creating hundreds of pieces of content for the sake of it, but understanding where and how content can be strategically used to enhance consumer behaviour. It’s promising to see that Australian marketers understand the value of content marketing and are looking for ways to make it work harder for their brands."
The study also revealed that 81% of Australian marketers are producing more content than they did one year ago; they use an average of 13 content marketing tactics, with website articles (84%), social media (84%), e-newsletters (82%), blogs (80%) and articles on other websites (72%) the most popular; and LinkedIn is the most-used social platform for distributing content (86%) followed by Facebook (79%), Twitter (79%), YouTube (74%) and Google+ (47%).
Australian marketers cited website traffic as their top marketing metric for measuring content marketing success (58%), followed by social media sharing (51%) and SEO ranking (45%). Forty-eight percent of Australian companies outsource their content creation, compared with 46% of UK marketers and 44% of North American marketers. Writing and design were the functions Australian marketers were most likely to outsource, at 64% and 62% respectively, and Australian marketers cite lack of time (28%) and budget (16%) as the biggest content marketing challenges they face.
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