UK marketers have become less effective at content marketing over the last year, according to new research released by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and sponsored by Axonn Media.
Only 42 per cent of marketers surveyed said they are ‘effective’ or ‘very effective’ at content marketing, down from 48 per cent a year ago.
These worrying findings may be because marketers are failing to implement formal campaign strategies. Just 36 per cent of marketers have a strategy written down, compared to 42 per cent last year, and one in ten don’t have any form of strategy at all.
Those with a documented strategy are 36 per cent more effective in all areas of content marketing. Seven in ten marketers with a documented strategy said they were effective at content marketing.
The report also found UK marketers target on average four different audiences and use an average of eight different channels to reach these audiences.
Online channels remain the most popular with 89 per cent of marketers using social media to connect with prospects, followed by enewsletters (88 per cent), blogs (85 per cent) and website articles (82 per cent).
Meanwhile, less popular channels included mobile apps (utilised by 32 per cent of those surveyed), virtual conference (23 per cent) and podcasts (22 per cent).
In terms of measuring results, one in ten marketers don’t track ROI in any way and only seven per cent think their methods of measurement are very successful.
The most popular metrics for measuring content marketing success are website traffic (used by 61 per cent of marketers), higher conversion rates (47 per cent), sales (44 per cent), sales lead quality (41 per cent) and SEO ranking (40 per cent).
Karen Webber, marketing director at Axonn Media, commented on the findings: “In order to be effective at content marketing, marketers need to get the three pillars of content marketing right: creation, technology and strategy.
“A documented strategy allows them to be effective and accurately measure their success, especially when they are targeting several audiences using numerous tactics at any one time. Also, without a documented strategy and recorded results, it’s much more difficult for marketers to get budget and buy-in.”
