“Most brands that went into content marketing are just improvising it. If they want a real result from the effort, they need to focus on setting out a defined strategy from a reliable and well experienced agency”, said Joe Pulizzi, the founder of the Content Marketing Institute.
While it seems obvious, most Australian marketers aren’t strategically focused on their content marketing. 74% of Australian marketers are doing more content marketing than they were a year ago. The average marketer surveyed invests more than a quarter of their total budget in content, and 63% plan to increase spending.
Pulizzi stated that Australian marketers are not very different to the US and UK marketers in that when it comes to improvised content marketing. Only 37% of them have a formal, written strategy for their content marketing. These agencies that have a solid structure are seeing the best results.
9 of 10 brands are implementing content marketing within their business, yet only 20% of marketers claimed their organisation was successful at tracking the ROI of content marketing. Less than a third (29%) think they are effective at content marketing, a drop from 33% last year. Those figures rise to 33% and 44% respectively for marketers that have a written strategy in place.
“It’s very experimental, which is fine. It’s a new discipline for most Australian businesses, but the only ones that are going to see any results are the ones writing it down – and those that are reviewing and measuring it. Those two things together are the critical differentiators”, said Pulizzi.
Engagement tops the list of goals marketers have for content marketing. However, the most used measure of success is web traffic.
Most brands, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, dive into social media when they think about attempting content marketing without having a clear reason or a goal. This is so wrong, since if you’re not trying to build an audience over the long-term, what are your true goal?
“The first thing is to just decide why you’re doing it. Lots of businesses just think that they need to be doing [content marketing] and I say: ‘Why?’. The only things I care about for content marketing are driving sales, cutting costs or leading to loyal customers” said Pulizzi.
More than a third of Australian marketers have no plan to set up a content marketing team or group within their organisation, whether that team sits in marketing, PR, or production teams. The important thing to get content marketing right is having a structure and committing to it rather than floating around. That’s why you need a reliable content marketing agency which can cater all of your problems and offer real results. Contact us today to discuss the best solution for your content marketing strategy or just give us a call on 1700 911 772.