Survey: Challenges Still Surround Content Marketing as a Business Asset

Marketers are turning to content marketing to achieve their objectives, but new research suggests they are still finding it difficult to use this tactic efficiently.

According to the “2017 Content Management and Strategy Survey” from the Content Marketing Institute, 91 percent of marketers use content to market their products and services. Furthermore, 92 percent said that their organization at least “somewhat” views content as a business asset. However, 44 percent claim that their company does not have a documented strategy for managing content as an asset.

Additionally, only 32 percent claim that they have structured content management plans in place, and 33 percent said they have customer journey maps. In terms of scalability, the majority of marketers (69 percent) stated that they have a system in place, but there is a lot of manual labor that has to be done.

To manage their content marketing efforts, more than three quarters (76 percent) are turning to email marketing technology. Fifty-seven percent have a content management system, while 44 percent utilize content collaboration/workflow software.

B2B Marketers and Content Marketing Strategies

Despite the challenges associated with content marketing, previous research shows that B2B enterprise marketers are dedicated to using the tactic.

The “B2B Enterprise Content Marketing 2017: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America” report from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs discovered that 53 percent of B2B enterprise marketers are “extremely/very committed” to content marketing.

Similar to other marketers, however, they struggle with strategizing. Just 28 percent claimed that their strategies are “sophisticated/mature,” and only 25 percent said their company is clear on what effective/successful content marketing looks like.