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Each issue of CMO Close-up features an interview with a CMO, as well as other marketing executives answering that issue's "Big Question."
This week's feature:
CMO Close-Up with Steve Liguori, executive director-global marketing at GE
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Content marketing budgets to increase
Kate Maddox
Story posted: February 8, 2010 - 6:01 am EDT
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As marketers look for more efficient ways to engage their target audiences and use such new channels as social media, they are increasing their content marketing budgets, according to a new study by Junta42.
The study, “2010 Content Marketing Spending,” was based on an online survey of 259 marketing professionals conducted in January.
It found that 59% plan to increase their content marketing budgets this year, up from 56% last year and 42% in 2008.
“Content marketing is the creation of valuable, compelling and relevant content for a targeted audience, designed to maintain or create some kind of action,” said Joe Pulizzi, founder and chief content officer of Junta42, a content marketing strategy firm.
“It's thinking of your company as a publisher and your customers as readers,” he said. “Buying behavior has changed completely. Instead of inundating your customers with sales messaging, content marketing is about generating all kinds of great informational content to position your company and executives as experts and solving ongoing challenges for your customers.”
When asked how their content marketing budgets compare with last year's, 19% of marketers said they would “increase significantly” this year; 40% said they would “increase slightly;” 35% said they would stay the same; and only 7% said their content marketing budgets would decrease this year.
Also, the share of total marketing budgets going to content marketing will increase to an average of 33% this year, up from 29% two years ago.
The survey also revealed a significant difference in the content marketing spending plans of large companies and small companies.
For companies with 100 or more employees, only 18% of the total marketing budget will go to content marketing, according to Junta42.
However, for companies with fewer than 100 employees, 42% of the marketing budget will be spent on content marketing.
“It's the ultimate David-versus-Goliath scenario,” Pulizzi said. “For the larger companies, more of the budget is taken up with media programs. With content marketing, you can create your own media channels and go directly to customers with a message.”
Regarding which channels companies are using for content marketing, the top platform is social media, which 72% of marketers are using. Other top channels are: e-newsletters (63%), blogs (63%), white papers (48%), article marketing (48%), case studies (46%), online video (42%), custom in-person events (31%) and microsites (31%).
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RUSSEL'S CONTENT STRATEGY
One b2b marketer that has boosted its content marketing strategy this year is Russell Investments, which provides investment products to corporations, financial professionals and individual investors.
Last month, Russell rolled out a new brand campaign, “Conversation Yields Innovation,” developed by Doremus, New York, and timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The campaign includes print and online, and is designed to show that in order to improve the financial industry, companies need to listen to their clients and innovate with their needs in mind.
“"Conversation Yields Innovation' is fundamentally a global thought-leadership branding campaign,” said Susan Brown, managing director of Russell Investments.
“We know our clients expect insightful research and thinking from Russell Investments, but this new effort is about catalyzing a bold and honest conversation in the industry—beyond our client base—about the most pressing challenges investors and fiduciaries are facing.”
Russell chose the World Economic Forum, whose theme was “Improve the state of the world. Rethink. Redesign. Rebuild,” in order to “surgically target” global influencers, Brown said.
The campaign makes heavy use of thought-leadership content, including op-ed style print ads in The Economist, Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, and an online video about successful investment strategies from Russell CIO Erik Ristuben.
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2 Comments
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Ingrid Archer
spotONvision
February 12, 2010 08:19 am
Content marketing is one thing and segmented marketing is another I would say. Segmenting your target audience doesn't mean you're creating great content for your audience. Many times B2B companies find it hard to create good content, think indeed of thought-leadership-type of content.
Whereas segment marketing is more around who are you targeting with what sort of content?
2 different things I would say; and both required these days if you want to achieve lasting results.
mark delfeld
February 9, 2010 01:58 pm
Since the concept of content marketing isn't that old, what was the proxy for content marketing a couple years back? How is content marketing any different from marketing on a segmented basis?
1 through 2
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