We have commented and reiterated on many occasions many of the reasons why “the content remains the King” of any successful campaign and why, this remains the pillar on which we must base ourselves to achieve truly be relevant, get more followers and generate greater loyalty in our customers. Even more so in the face of current changes and new metrics in search engine algorithms such as Google.
Creating, finding and sharing interesting content brands and companies can transmit to their followers and consumers who know ‘their territory’, showing themselves as authentic opinion leaders in their sector and helping their clients to keep up to date on important events. That is why more and more companies and professionals are putting an increasing emphasis on the ability to market valuable content, added to their objectives and perspectives.
According to a recent report developed by HiveFire, almost half of the marketing professionals surveyed in the United States now adopt the content as part of their strategy, while another 42% are familiar with the practice but do not participate. Even among that group, 85% had done it at least once when sending content to, for example, a prospect, but was not aware of it.
The main objectives of content preservation, according to the survey, are to establish the leadership and the brand’s fashion improvement. In 2010, a similar report found that brand awareness was the main goal of content marketing for marketing companies, cited by 78% of respondents.
While the generation and search engine optimization (SEO) was reduced towards the end of the list of HiveFire results, content marketing can do a lot for that area as well. HubSpot for example, has reported on the effectiveness of customer acquisition through blogs.
However, the ‘healing content’ is not a low touch activity and according to the report, the biggest challenges are creating original and attractive content, and finding the time to do so. It was much easier to find quality third-party content, but still almost half of the sellers said it was also difficult.
The results of this survey also show that the content was growing in importance, with each 7 of 10 respondents saying that finding, organizing and sharing the content was more important than last year. The same number believes that it will be even more important in 2012.