Content Marketing / Custom Publishing Research – Marketers Telling the Story

Really interesting study on content marketing and custom publishing research led by King Fish Media with help from Hubspot, Upshot and Junta42.

(Note: the study requires name and email to download and the 20-page eBook can be downloaded here).

Here are the highlights from the 189 marketing professionals that took the study:

Beliefs about Content Marketing

* 93% of marketing professionals create or plan to create content marketing as part of their overall programs in the next year. The take: We are all publishers now.
* Almost 67% of marketers believe that the content they produce can have the same or more value than a traditional media company. 8 out of 10 believe they can create content as engaging as media companies. The take: Brands have access to some of the best writing talent in their industries today versus years’ past, so this makes sense (although the number is a bit higher than we expected. Marketers we’ve talked with on this don’t really “believe” they can do this without proper coaxing.)

Measurement

* Marketers believe content marketing is 18 times more effective in actually determining ROI than traditional advertising (74% to 4%). The take: Wow! But, this makes more sense when you look further at their marketing objectives. Since most are heavily relying on lead generation, this seems right since content drives lead generation programs. Still, amazingly high number.
* 70% of marketers are spending more on content marketing over the last three years. The take: this is consistent with our findings last December that found a 56% increase in content marketing spending in 2009 alone.

Content Where?

* Top tactics where content marketing is spent: Email marketing, Corporate web site, Social media.
* Where will the money be going next year: Online video and podcasts, White papers/eBooks, Social media.

How to use this report?

If you need research and statistics in order to get buy-in from your executive team for content marketing, this will be incredibly helpful. There are a lot more stats in here than the ones I included, so download the entire eBook report here.

Thanks to King Fish and Junta42 for putting this together.