Campaign management and analysis of data are becoming more important than ever when it comes to driving leads online.
Ninety percent of businesses believe improving the integration of data stored online with information housed elsewhere would streamline their marketing efforts, a released from the Kern Organization said.

The study polled and analyzed 400 top-level marketing executives to gauge marketing challenges and strong points across all sectors.

The study suggests that marketing executives now have access to more campaign information than ever. While data is certainly a valuable commodity, without the tools to organize and analyze it, the information may become a burden.

To free some of the time required to process this information and leverage it, 43 percent of businesses have started outsourcing as much as 25 percent of their marketing budgets to third-party agencies.

“Far from being a cost center, today’s best marketing organizations provide both long term visibility into revenue results and short term ability to identify and impact the factors that can most improve revenue performance in the short term,” Eloqua chief technology officer Steven Woods said in the Kern release.

In the short- and long-terms, content marketing and social media marketing can help businesses target highly specific market segments they may be neglecting. Content produced for either SEO or social media purposes should be tailored to segments that may be undertapped in terms of sales potential.

According to Michael Weiss, managing director of Figure18.com, content marketing has become a competitive necessity for businesses moving forward. The material produced allows companies to lever the growing search marketing sector, while also demonstrating their own thought leadership within specific industries.

Businesses that begin to implement more complex content marketing strategies must be sure to conduct frequent audits of their keyword strategies and page ranks to ensure success, Brafton recently reported. Additionally, 80 percent of consumers report being swayed to make or abandon a purchase based on feedback on the web, Brafton found on Wednesday.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.