Content creation and management is a top marketing method for the vast majority of B2B businesses, according to a new survey by content marketing platform Curata.
Three-quarters (75%) of respondents said their company plans to increase its investment in content marketing in 2016 — and one major area of investment is talent acquisition. Almost half (42%) said their company now has an executive responsible for content marketing, and that percentage is reported to grow to 51% by 2017.
The report, titled “2016 Content Marketing Staffing and Tactics Barometer,” was compiled from a survey of 1,030 marketers. Of the respondents, 48.5% work for B2B companies, 15.2% for B2C and 27.7% for companies listed as both (with 8.6% in the non-profit sector).
However, despite the increased investment, respondents cited several challenges when it comes to content strategy within their organizations, including:
- Lack of cross-company alignment. Only 12% said their company’s content strategy is “extremely aligned” across the organization.
- Lack of human resources. Almost three-quarters (68%) said their content marketing team consists of three or fewer people.
- Not capitalizing on current content. Of those surveyed, 37% said their organization never completes a content audit, and only 21% said they have a specific process in place to reuse and repurpose content.
Michael Gerard, CMO of Curata, said in an interview with Demand Gen Report that companies may be addressing these challenges by hiring content marketing executives.
“Many of today’s challenges in this area, such as organizational alignment, content strategy development, greater reuse of content and performance measurement require a more strategic perspective to the practice of content marketing,” he said. “Having this executive in place will also shed light on the importance that content plays as a common thread across an organization to drive leads and revenue.”
