Newsflash: Changing your content strategy doesn’t inherently mean you’re improving it. Brafton recently reported the Interactive Advertising Bureau suggested brands reallocate 15 percent of their TV spending dollars to digital channels to potentially increase the reach of any internet marketing campaign by between 3 and 6 percent. However, shifting monetary percentages doesn’t always result in higher revenue streams, especially for businesses that don’t know which half of their budgets work toward generating sales versus which half improve brand lift.
In the most recent Association of National Advertisers Top Concerns Survey, accountability and reliable ROI were noted as the most pressing issues for senior-level marketers. In fact, accountability ranked well above any other noted issue this year, which could be a result of digital channels taking a greater percentage of the overall marketing-spend pie. With companies jumping on tactics like social media marketing, content creation and video marketing, professionals leveraging these avenues for wider reach are still struggling to measure the results of a given campaign online. Sixty-two percent of surveyed senior-level marketers using new-media channels say calculating ROI remains a difficult task. Overall, the report reveals that marketers need partners who can give them smart content analytics, with actionable ideas on how to make campaign adjustments to meet their most important goals.
Where do top-level marketers say they need help?
- Marketing Accountability (26%)
- Enhancing digital, social and mobile media proliferation metrics and ROI (14%)
- Media proliferation and measurement (9%)
- B2B marketing, communications and branding (9%)
- Integrated marketing plans and execution (8%)
- Agency compensation and relations (8%)
- Marketing organization best practices (7%)
- Brand lift (7%)
- Research measurement (7%)
- Big Data management (2%)
- Privacy policies and management (2%)
Clearly, American businesses need help transitioning their offline strategies to online channels and showing that their efforts pay off long term. The Content Marketing Institute notes that 46 percent of B2Cs and 44 percent of B2Bs outsource their content marketing efforts to third-party services, which provides marketers with consultants who can help wade through data and develop the best possible strategies for generating ROI. With senior-level marketing professionals struggling to catch up with the surge in digital technology and proliferation of online media, demand for content marketing services continues to rise, and all-in-one agencies will offer the most well-rounded advice.
