Survey: Social, Mobile, Dynamic Content Marketing is on the Rise

The way marketers publish content is changing as more businesses move away from static PDFs and toward more dynamic delivery, a new survey reveals.

The fourth annual “Following the Trends – Is Your Content Ready” jointly conducted by Data Conversion Laboratory and the Center for Information Development Management found while 88 percent of respondents are publishing via PDFs currently, in two years’ time, only 53 percent intend to use the format for publishing. HTML (76 percent) and mobile apps (65 percent) will become the publishing format of choice.

The survey found marketers are struggling with differentiating content for mobile devices; 37 percent are publishing the same content on all devices and 34 percent do not publish for mobile. Additionally, just 20 percent are optimizing their content for mobile devices.

Searchable content (65 percent), learning videos (51 percent) and mobile content (44 percent) were named as the top three content deliver requests from customers, the data shows. The survey also revealed marketers are not using social media to its full capability: 46 percent of respondents indicated they did not use social media to provide content.

“The pace of change continues to accelerate, and the delivery channels are expanding to include social media,” says Joann Hackos, Director for Center for Information Development Management. “We need to ensure that we’re providing the tools and resources information developers need to deliver content in the ways that their customers demand.”

To succeed in this digital transition, 51 percent of respondents said they needed better publishing or content management tools.

Content Marketing Remains a Developing Discipline

A January 2016 study by Crescendo and the Aberdeen Group revealed that more than half of marketers place in the “beginning” or “emerging” categories in regards to content maturity.

None of the survey respondents could consider their content marketing strategy’s maturity as “optimal,” according to the authors of the report. An optimal score was defined by the researchers as having a robust content marketing operation, driven by a larger marketing strategy.