90 percent of marketers expect content marketing to increase

I thought I’d highlight some important statistics that came from a recent study conducted by Outbrain and eConsultancy:

General content marketing activity in industry—

91 percent of in-house marketers use content marketing to market their products or services
90 precent of all digital marketing professionals believe content marketing will become more important in the next 12 months
64 percent believe content marketing is becoming its own discipline

General content marketing operations in business—

54 percent of brand don’t have a person dedicated to content marketing in-house
66 percent don’t have a budget specifically allotted for content marketing efforts
42 percent believe they lack the people needed to execute a content marketing strategy

I thought the top three responses to some key questions were compelling, too:

Q: What are the three most important business objectives for your content marketing activity?

Increased engagement
Increasing traffic to site
Raising brand awareness

Q: Which types of content do you use for marketing purposes?

Social posts and updates
Email newsletters
News/feature articles on own site(s)

Note: Press Releases and Blog Posts were almost tied for the third spot.

Q: Do you/your clients have an individual within your/their organization dedicated to content marketing?

YES—46 percent of companies and 16 percent of agencies/consultants
NO BUT PLANNING—23 percent of companies and 30 percent of agencies/consultants
NO—31 percent of companies and 53 percent of agencies/consultants

What does all this mean?

Content Marketing is still emerging. Though, it is past the infancy phase. Most people continue to feel overwhelmed while they experiment with different content marketing strategies and models.
Content Marketing will continue to grow in importance and shape how companies go to market.
Content Marketing creates new demands on companies who must decide whether they will task in-house staff, hire additional staff, or contract out to agencies or consultants to meet the demand for new content.
Most companies/brands feel unprepared to bridge the divide between publishing and traditional marketing.

Are you investing in content marketing? If yes, how so? What results have you experienced thus far?

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Ben Stroup is a content activist in a post-paragraph world. He is chief broker of opportunity at Ben Stroup Enterprises. Connect with Ben via email, Twitter, and Google+. Subscribe via email to learn how to use content to move people to action.