With recent
studies highlighting how marketers expect content marketing to become
significantly more important over the next 12 months, Waseem Saddique, CEO of
WS Marketing Services outlines the value of having an effective content
strategy.
Businesses
have always understood that quality content plays a pivotal role when
attracting the attention of target audiences, but what’s surprising is that
many companies do not have an effective content strategy in place.
Waseem
Saddique asserts: “Content marketing is nothing revolutionary, but similar to
social media it has gained a renewed emphasis. The biggest contributor to the
renewed focus of content marketing is the changing nature of consumer habits.”
A recent
study, released by Kantar Media, identifies that over three quarters of
shoppers (around 83%) tend to undertake online product research before
committing to buy electronic items.
Recent
changes by Google, in particular its Panda update, has also led to marketers
having to rethink their approach to search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies, putting a
greater emphasis on the need for quality content.
At present
around 90% of marketers have stated that content marketing will become
significantly more important over the next 12 months and there is no denying
that companies will begin to recognise the rising prominence of content
marketing. 64% of marketers also agree that content marketing is now becoming
its own discipline separate from that of social media.
Yet, despite
social media marketing and content marketing each becoming a discipline in
their own right, they are still closely connected. The need to create great
content serves as a great platform for engaging consumers through social media
like Twitter and Facebook.
From the
study released by Kantar Media, they identified that 83% of in-house marketing
experts utilise social media posts and updates for marketing purposes and this
is far more than any other type of content marketing.
However, very
few businesses actually have specific resources aimed at improving their
content marketing strategies. According to recent studies, less than half of
organisations (approximately 34%) have a budget allocated for developing
content marketing techniques.
Waseem Saddique comments: “Many companies embarking on producing effective content
marketing strategies have cited many challenges when it comes to improving the
quality of their content. Most marketers claim that a lack of understanding and
training are the main barriers that stand in the way of advancing content
marketing strategies.”
Regardless of
the challenges faced by businesses though, content marketing is indeed making a
high profile return as focus shifts from content quantity to content quality.
Therefore, the significance of content marketing on business survival in the
next 12 months is something that needs to be taken seriously.
With this in
mind it appears that the message has already been received by many businesses,
as the study conducted by Kantar Media points to evidence that 58% of
businesses featured in their report are planning to implement content marketing
strategies in the future. Alongside social media, the power of content
marketing is the future of attraction for the changing consumer market.
