The 2016 State of
DIGITAL CONTENT
Content Strategy Goes Beyond
the Marketing Department
By Omar Akhtar
October 25, 2016
Includes survey data from 528 digital transformation leaders and strategists
To understand how brands are using
content to achieve business goals
and deliver on customer needs, we
surveyed over 500 content strategists
in North America and Europe across
major industry verticals including IT,
retail, manufacturing, fnance, and
healthcare.
We tested the hypothesis that content
is no longer a marketing function,
but a strategic tool for multiple
parts of the organization to meet
business objectives and deliver on
a unifed customer experience. We
charted the progress companies have
made towards achieving this vision
across several different aspects of
the business, including leadership,
organization, strategy, and technology.
We also created a snapshot of the
most common practices by industry
and identifed the future initiatives and
technologies that companies were
investing in.EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
purposes. They are now deploying it across other parts of the business such as sales
and service. Over 80% of the respondents said they had a unifed content strategy that
applied to the entire organization.
operations. Over 80% of respondents said they had executive support, were able to
attribute revenue to content, and created personalized content based on customer data.
Despite having a unifed content strategy, 55% of companies said aligning multiple
teams around that strategy was their biggest challenge, and 70% said this alignment
was one of their top initiatives in 2017.
leaders. The top objectives for producing content were brand health (36%) and
thought leadership (32%).This implies that brands are neglecting other opportunities
to use content such as inspiring trust, or providing product support.
generated content (62%) and to a lesser extent, outside agencies (43%) to help scale
the production of content.
relevant content, the most popular sources being social media metrics (65%) and website
analytics (63%). Data analysis was the most desired skill (67%) for content strategists and
51% of respondents said the data team was leading the content strategy discussion.
engagement for their content on Facebook (71%) followed by email (61%). To get that
level of engagement, brands are spending ad dollars to amplify content. Another key
channel: 46% cite native advertising as their most engaging content.
KEY
FINDINGS
We believe that in 2016, mature and effective
companies use digital content, not just in
marketing, but across their organization.
Content can do more than the typical
marketing objectives of creating brand
awareness or maintaining brand health. It can
now promote loyalty, create transparency, fuel
a community, provide technical support, and
even generate direct revenue.
So we set out to track how far companies
had come in managing content across the
organization, what objectives companies
were pursuing, and which strategies they
were implementing. We also tracked factors
that drive maturity, such as executive
support, revenue attribution, and the
use of sophisticated technology such as
personalization and
real-time delivery.
An additional goal of this study was to create
a snapshot of current content practices. We
determined what respondents considered the
most effective formats, delivery channels, and
measurement techniques for their content
strategies-- and what they planned for the
coming year.
For each of these questions, we looked at
variation across industries and geographies.INTRODUCTION
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