Marketing Topics to Cover with Your Clients: Content Marketing

BY Kathy Crosett
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A good content marketing program and strategy can help your clients get noticed. With prospects and customers spending more time online than ever before, businesses must upgrade their marketing strategy, so now is the time to ad it to the list of marketing topics to cover with your clients. A pre-​COVID-​19 survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and The Content Council reveals what marketers are doing to fine-​tune their marketing program and strategy and improve measurement of outcomes.

Marketing Topics: Improving Your Client's Content Marketing Program and Strategy

The survey results, based on the input of 126 marketing professionals, shows the growing importance of content marketing. The percentage of businesses committed to content marketing has increased drastically. Two years ago, 25% of marketers said they had a strong commitment. And two years from now, 78% say they believe they’ll have a strong commitment to their marketing program and strategy.

However, commitment doesn’t happen without a promise of funding. In the ANA survey, about 18% of the average marketing budget, or $15.4 million, goes to content marketing. By 2021, those marketers expect to be spending $21.9 million on this activity.

Marketers want control over their content marketing. About 15.5% of the spending goes to brand activation expense. Marketers manage 63% of these activities by using their own staffers. What about the other 37%? That’s where an opportunity can be found for their marketing program and strategy.

These businesses collaborate with outside agencies on specific activities at the following levels:

  • Strategy 32%
  • Development and production 40%
  • Distribution 38%
  • Technology (CMS) 18%
  • Measurement and analytics 32%

When researchers took a deeper dive into the data of these marketing topics, they found that most marketers work with at least one outside agency when developing and maintaining a marketing program and strategy. For distribution needs, over half work (55%) with a media buying agency. And nearly as many, 51%, rely on media buying agencies to help measure the results of their content marketing efforts.

There’s no substitute for strong storytelling in content marketing. Your clients must develop the story of what they are all about and design that message to resonate with the target audience. Brand managers often don’t feel confident in their abilities to create a message that works so 47% of marketers reach out to agencies for that purpose.

If you want to score as a possible content marketing partner with a business, position your company as expert in the qualities prospects care about:

  • Quality content 52%
  • Data analysis  46%
  • Developing metric-​driven strategies 43%
  • Demonstrated breakthrough creative insights 43%

Innovation

As marketing program and strategy budgets increase, businesses are also looking for ways to stand out from competitors. Part of that strategy will be all about creative storytelling. But marketers have big plans for the next 12 months. They expect to investigate the following aspects of content marketing:

  • Test and learn strategies 46%
  • Marketing automation 41%
  • Geo-​targeting 36%
  • Actionable reporting 35%

Businesses Must Upgrade Their Content Marketing

If your organization excels in these areas, you can position yourself as a content marketing expert. You can add more credibility to your claims by checking out the Digital Audit in AdMall from SalesFuel. The audit shows the kinds of content that are most interesting to your client’s prospects.


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