Content marketing success: the big question

With the beginning of each new calendar year comes fresh research into content marketing – often telling the same story as previous analysis. In this case, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has published a report into B2B content marketing which reveals that many marketers could be more effective in their working practices.

According to the research, only 44 per cent of the B2B marketers who responded to the survey were clear on what constitutes content-marketing success.

This is a recurring theme. Last year, a CMI report found that only 43 per cent of marketers had a content-marketing strategy.

Budgets seem to be the same, with 28 per cent of total B2B marketing budgets earmarked for content marketing. This too was unchanged from last year. Unsurprisingly, those who allocate more resource are more successful. The same applies if you devote more time to content marketing.

Other points include:

• Asked to rate performance metrics by importance, B2B marketers placed quality of sales leads at the top (87 per cent), followed by sales (84 per cent) and higher conversion rates
  (82 per cent).
• Forty-four per cent of B2B marketers meet daily or weekly – either in person or virtually – to discuss the progress of their content-marketing programme. The most effective are those who meet frequently: of these 61 per cent confer daily or weekly.

Seven crowns itself Europe’s number one content-marketing agency

Is it all about size? Seven has merged with German experiential agency C3 to make “Europe’s biggest content marketing agency“. And good for them.

The question is whether you can rate something on size alone? Moreover, does it count when you merge with someone who is not necessarily a content-marketing agency? Would Tesla be the world’s biggest car manufacturer if it merged with Boeing?

Many ad agencies are obsessed with being bigger. Whether it’s new business or overall billings, size is seen as an important indicator of success. There has never been any proof that it translates into new clients or helps keep old ones.

I’m sure Seven/C3 would provide a good answer. Still, it’s more appropriate to boast about size when you’ve won some business and expanded, rather than absorbing another company.