We’ve all heard it—and probably said it: Content is king. Marketers are using the channel to boost customer engagement, lead generation and brand awareness. However, recent research suggests that there are plenty of boundaries preventing content marketers from reaching the ultimate level of success.
Polling conducted earlier this month by Ascend2 found a wide variety of obstacles to content marketing success. Lack of content creation resources was the biggest challenge, cited by the majority of marketing professionals worldwide. More than four in 10 respondents said lack of an effective strategy—and likely creation and distribution of content as a result—was an issue, and budget constraints were the third-biggest challenge, cited by 40% of marketers.
Findings from January 2015 research by Curata highlight several trends that could help marketers overcome content challenges. For one, the study found that it was becoming more common for companies to have an executive who was directly responsible for an overall content marketing strategy. Fully 49% of the nearly 600 US marketers studied said their firms had one, up from 43% in 2014, and 60% believed this would be the case next year. Having a leader in place will likely drive the creation of a strategy and help better manage resources.
Knowing what content exists and what can be reused and repurposed can help marketers stretch their budgets—and avoid wasting precious resource time. However, many marketers polled by Curata weren’t too focused on such efforts. Nearly four in 10 said they never audited their companies’ content, and an additional 8% only did so biannually. Fewer than one-third of respondents conducted a full content audit quarterly (18%) or semiannually (14%), and one-quarter did so once a year.
As noted, reusing content can help marketers make the most of their money and resources. Unfortunately, this also proved to be a pain point. Just over one-fifth of respondents said they had a specific process in place to ensure optimal content reuse and repurpose—not far above the percentage who didn’t do this at all. Marketers were most likely to reuse and repurpose content sporadically, which doesn’t help when trying to form a long-term plan.
In order to overcome resource, strategy and budget issues, marketers should consider having someone directly responsible for an overall content marketing strategy, as well as auditing, reusing and repurposing content.
