Seventy-five per cent of brands plan to increase their content marketing budgets in 2014, according to new research by content marketing agency, NewsReach.
Some 23 per cent of firms said they planned to maintain their spend, with just two per cent set to make reductions.
Meanwhile, the research also revealed that companies are now increasingly outsourcing their content with an eight per cent increase between 2012 and 2013.
In addition to spending more on developing clear strategies and creating outstanding content, brands may also look to invest more in testing and analysis, content seeding and paid content discovery.
Investment in the creation of custom graphics is also likely to increase in 2014. Over 50 per cent of marketers say visual content, ranging from infographics and videos to memes and cartoons, is the most effective content type for social sharing.
Chris Trimble, director of content at NewsReach parent company Axonn Media commented on the research: “The more sophisticated content marketing becomes, the more difficult and labour-intensive it is to manage, and we’re at the stage now where a lot of marketers are going to be looking to technology to make their lives easier.
“This view is supported by our research which shows three quarters of marketers plan to increase their spend on content marketing next year – expanding their online offering.
“Currently there’s little in the way of quality tech designed specifically to help with content marketing and this is certainly something which we feel will change rapidly.”
