A staggering 98% of marketers believe that content is “highly effective” and enterprises are allocating around a quarter of their budgets to production and distribution, a new study released by GoodFirms shows.
More than 100 digital marketing professionals and experts were surveyed for the new study, and it is clear that content marketing continues to receive universal acclaim for its ability to support and drive positive business objectives. The general purpose of content is wide-ranging too.
Just under 25% of respondents said that content is mainly used to “improve SEO”, making it the most popular goal, but not by a landslide as “drive conversions” came in second with 22.8% of the vote. Marketers also use blogs, articles and infographics to “boost web traffic” (20.2%), increase “brand awareness” (18.6%) and “impart knowledge” (13.8%).
Trinity Insight’s Founder and CEO Craig Smith said: “We have had an active blog for years, and have always believed in publishing quality content. Whenever we pull back from our efforts, we notice a significant drop in links and leads.”
The average business allocates 25% of budgets to content, but some brands are going to greater lengths to satiate the demand for engaging materials. Just over a third said that they now invest 60% of marketing spend on content, while 11.5% invest up to 90%.
In terms of top challenges, producing engaging content leads the way with 42.9%, ahead of developing a content strategy (28.5%) and measuring the return on investment from campaigns (13.5%).
