When it comes to publishing content, where it appears is as important as what it's about, and marketers need to know where customers go.

Content delivery methods vary depending on the demographics marketers want to reach. For example, Millennials are likely to research products and services on YouTube, as Brafton reported. Similarly, Facebook usership skews toward older Americans, while professionals are frequently on LinkedIn.

Producing content, therefore, isn’t just about communicating certain information – it’s related to the channel where it’s going to be seen. As we explained in our recent webinar, Repurposing your content: How to do more with less, sometimes the best way to generate content is to take what’s already been produced and optimize it for a new platform. That philosophy is important to bear in mind when considering the results of the latest study from Millennial Media.

Discovering the routes readers take

The report, Cross-screen consumer behavior: Decoded, explored which devices Americans are using to consume content. It should come as no surprise that mobile-only viewership is up – in fact, it’s risen 900 percent since April 2013. Conversely, PC-only readership is down 45 percent over the same period of time, but 70 percent of respondents said they used a mix of PCs, tablets and smartphones to consume content.

The study further explored content use by asking which types of content marketing materials were most seen on different devices. On one end was B2B media, which is predominantly viewed just on PCs (80 percent). Other mostly PC-only industries were automotive products (76 percent) and business and finance (62 percent). At the other side of the spectrum was retail, with 56 percent of its content seen on a mobile device.

All content that wanders is not lost: Distribution in a multi-channel world

Producing engaging content should be the number one priority of any good marketer, but the greatest challenge brands face is often getting that content in front of ideal audiences. If excellent in-depth guides are written, but don’t get any traffic, they’re like the proverbial trees falling in the woods. That’s why it’s just as important to explore target customer behavior as it is to write and publish riveting web marketing materials. 

Alex Butzbach is a Marketing Writer at Brafton. He studied Communications at Boston College, and after a brief stint teaching English in Japan, he entered the world of content marketing. When he isn't writing and researching, he can be found on a bike somewhere in Metro Boston.