Content Marketing And The Future of PR
Category: Blog - April 05, 2011
Beehive PR has been doing a lot of work in the areas of content strategy and content marketing for our clients. This includes supporting search engine optimization (SEO) and improving website performance, but it also directly supports our efforts around media engagement and social media activation. In fact, developing effective content planning and strategy is at the very core of what we do. I came across some interesting research from the Custom Content Council with Roper Affairs via Joe Pulizzi on his Junta42 blog. Here’s a quick rundown:
- - 35% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) surveyed felt that custom, branded content is the future of marketing (up from 19% in 2006)
- - 87% of CMOs feel this custom, branded content is a valuable asset (versus 72% in 2006)
These two data points from the survey confirm a changed marketing reality, and this aligns perfectly with our focus on content at Beehive PR. But it’s not just internally at companies where the validation of content marketing continues to gain momentum:
- - 77% of consumers understand the content coming from companies is to support selling them products and services
- - 73% of consumers prefer getting article content from a company over advertising
- - 69% of consumers like that custom content specifically targets their interests
- - 67% feel that custom content is valuable
While confirming, those consumer stats are also startling. As consumers, our habits are changing and with that so are our expectations for engagement and for quality of information. We appreciate it when we find it and definitely miss it when we don’t. This is a reality for not just the marketing function in companies, but also for customer service, sales, brand and public relations. It is a challenge reflected in the graph above via Marketing Profs/Junta42. The upside is that it is this content focus that suddenly pulls these functions together and integrates them with the common goal of substantive connection to customers. The challenge for organizations is in doing this well, in putting forth a plan that not only supports goals in engagement, awareness and activation but that can sustain and scale. For a company not to map with these changes is not only a missed opportunity, increasingly it is a potential failure in strategy.
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