State of Content Marketing

Getting started means embracing some fundamental content marketing philosophies. BrainTraffic.com blogger Kristina Halvorsen writes, “It’s a way of thinking that has direct impact on the way we do business,” which she says, “must include a clear focus on how we create, deliver and govern our content.” Halvorsen adds that “content strategy can’t be truly effective over the long term without an internal editorial infrastructure to support it.”⁸

To that end, Halvorsen speaks of “widespread organizational change,” a concept promoted by another content strategist, Mashable.com’s
  Brian Solis. “New media necessitates a collaboration between all teams involved in creating and distributing content, including advertising, interactive, communications, brand and marketing,” writes Solis, “with an editorial role connecting the dots.”⁹

“Connecting the dots” also means distributing and leveraging content across complementary, cross-referencing media platforms. From print and digital magazines to white papers to podcasts, marketers can access a range of content products and channels—with social media serving as content’s primary fountainhead.

The most recent Custom Content Council’s “Industry Characteristics Study” finds marketers
spending 32 percent of their total marketing budgets on content marketing, up 8 percent from 2008 (see Chart 1). For actual products, Junta42’s “2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey” shows social media, utilized by 72 percent of the respondents, is marketers’ top choice (see Chart 2).¹⁰

For Rupert Murdoch, content is not merely king,
but emperor.¹¹ Well, not only must this emperor wear clothes, but his robes must shine—content quality counts highest of all. According to SocialMediaToday.com, some experts estimate Internet information will double every 72 hours in just a few years.¹² How can marketers possibly make meaningful content connections on this data J-curve?

“Good content is not enough,” says Pulizzi. “Brands have to develop marketing messages that customers want, so that customers in turn let those brands into their world and allow them to have a conversation with them. That means brands must develop valuable, relevant and compelling content in the proper context.”