The 2016 state of digital content von Altimeter

The 2016 State of

DIGITAL CONTENTContent Strategy Goes Beyond

the Marketing Department

By Omar Akhtar October 25, 2016Includes 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, finance, 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 unified 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 identified the future initiatives and technologies that companies were investing in.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Most companies have moved beyond using content purely for marketing 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 unified content strategy that applied to the entire organization.

• Majority of companies displayed high levels of maturity for digital content 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.

• Companies still struggle with aligning teams around a common content vision. Despite having a unified 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.

• Brands use content mostly to create awareness and build credibility as thought 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.

• Brands produce most content in-house (68%). However brands also rely on user-generated content (62%) and to a lesser extent, outside agencies (43%) to help scale the production of content.

• Data drives content. Almost all companies (99%) use some form of data to create 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.

• Nearly everybody uses Facebook for content. Brands received the most 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.

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INTRODUCTION

Based on responses to our behavioral questions, we found that companies displayed high levels of maturity when it came to how they used digital content. Over 80% of respondents agreed that they had content strategies that extend across departments, executive support, and the ability to deliver data-driven, personalized, real-time content (see Figure 1).

CONTENT PRODUCING COMPANIES SHOW HIGH LEVELS OF MATURITY

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FIGURE 1.

INDICATORS OF MATURITY FOR PRODUCERS OF DIGITAL CONTENT

My company has a unified content strategy that applies to the entire organization

Executive leadership fully supports and invests in using branded content to achieve

business goals

My company is able to directly tie revenue to engagement generated by branded content

My company creates relevant content based on customer data gathered from multiple

departments/resources

Multiple departments within my company consistently produce content according to a central vision and common set of guidelines

My company can deliver personalized content in real-time to customers based on

the actions they take on our digital properties

41% 47%

8% 4 1

39% 44%

14% 3 1

39% 47%

12% 2 1

38% 44%

14% 2 1

36% 49%

12% 3

35% 48%

13% 4

Agree Somewhat Agree Neutral Somewhat Disagree Disagree

• 41% of companies agree that they have an organization wide content strategy. When we include people who “somewhat agree,” this proportion rises to 88%. Companies are planning beyond content marketing plans, working on central strategies across all customer-facing departments who can benefit from deploying content. In Europe, only 31% agreed that they had a unified content strategy. Comparing industries, IT was the most confident, with 49% of respondents saying they had a unified strategy.

• 39% of respondents had the complete support of executive leadership. And an additional 44% somewhat agreed that they had complete support. The majority of companies have executive buy-in for using content, which indicates that it has graduated from the “testing and learning” phase to showing real business impact. This figure was consistent across North America, Europe and all industries, but with higher support (55%) in manufacturing companies, where the benefits of B2B content are clearer.

Source: 2016 Digital Content Survey, Altimeter, a Prophet Company n= 518

38% of companies say they

are able to create content based on data gathered

from multiple sources

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• 39% of respondents can tie content efforts to revenue generation. Adding in those who could identify some support, 86% could show revenue results. This is a crucial factor in getting departments other than marketing to invest in content as a strategic tool. North America (44%) has made more progress in this regard than Europe (31%). Comparing industries, IT (45%) and manufacturing (45%) were most likely to be able to tie content to revenue, while retail was least likely (30%). Again, B2B companies were more likely to attribute revenue impact to content. This can be explained by the comparatively long sales cycles of IT and manufacturing companies, where content has a greater chance of influencing the purchaser to make a considered decision.

• Overall, 38% of companies create content based on data gathered from multiple sources. Unifying data to create an accurate picture of the customer and their needs continues to be a challenge, not just for content strategy, but for teams that are focused on the entire, unified customer experience. Only 29% of European companies could do this, while North Americans were more confident at 44%.

• 36% of companies say they’re able to align different content-producing departments. A key component of a mature content strategy is that multiple stakeholders create and follow the strategy, which enables many departments to coordinate as they create content on their own. This was tougher for finance (28%) and healthcare (26%) respondents, where compliance with regulations makes cross-department coordination challenging.

• 35% of companies can create personalized content and deliver it in real-time. This is a little surprising given that marketing tech platforms have been offering this technology for at least the last two years, and there are more tools than ever that enable companies to create personalized, data-based content. It highlights a gap between the technology and its adoption, and indicates that brands still aren’t factoring personalization and real-time delivery into their content strategies. There was also a sizeable gap in adoption between North America (40%) and Europe, where only 28% of respondents said they practiced real-time personalization.

36% of companies say they’re

able to align different content-producing

departments

39% of respondents are able to tie content efforts to revenue

generation

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Companies are well versed in the technology and skills needed to execute a digital content strategy, but still face challenges on the processes side, specifically around alignment and setting governance across multiple teams (see Figure 2).

ALIGNING TEAMS AND ACCESSING DATA ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES

FIGURE 2.

BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR CONTENT PRODUCING ORGANIZATIONSQuestion: What are the biggest challenges you face in creating and implementing a content strategy? (Choose 3)

Aligning multiple teams around a unified strategy

Accessing relevant customer data

Difficulty in proving business impact of content

Producing content at a large scale

Purchasing or integrating the right software

Getting investment/support from executive leadership

Hiring the right skills/people

55%

54%

53%

47%

37%

35%

18%

Leadership and strategists aren’t on the

same page when it comes to defining

business impact


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• Most respondents had trouble aligning teams and accessing data. The top challenges for content producing organizations were aligning multiple teams for a unified content strategy (55%) and access to relevant customer data (54%). Access to multiple sources of data is an especially difficult challenge since it involves not only the cooperation of several departments, but integrating different data platforms in order to ingest, standardize, and analyze data, and make it actionable.

• Only 35% find getting executive support a major challenge. This reflects the growing extent of executive buy-in for content initiatives. However, the results were completely flipped in North America, where 60% of respondents picked getting executive support as their biggest challenge, followed by hiring the right people/skills (54%). Despite this, North Americans had an easier time proving the business impact of content (32%) and aligning multiple teams around a unified content strategy (18%).

• Overall, 55% of respondents had a hard time proving the business impact of content. We believe that teams who are able to prove ROI with content are more likely to have other departments aligning themselves with their plan. However, the difficulty in getting executive support suggests that leadership and strategists aren’t on the same page when it comes to defining business impact.

Only

35% find getting executive support a major

challenge

The top challenges for

content producing organizations were

aligning multiple teams for a unified content strategy (55%) and access to relevant

customer data (54%)

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In its early days, brands regarded content purely a marketing tool, and leadership graded it on the same terms as traditional advertising. Its primary objective was to create brand awareness or improve brand health or perception. Since then, companies strive to do far more than just create awareness with content, although awareness remains a top objective (Figure 3).

MARKETING AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ARE THE MOST COMMON CONTENT OBJECTIVES

FIGURE 3.

TOP OBJECTIVES FOR BRANDS PRODUCING CONTENTQuestion: Which of the following objectives is most important for your brand?

36% We want customers to be aware of the brand

and have positive feelings about it

32% We want to be seen

as thought leaders and subject matter experts

in our industry

18% We want to inspire

trust, loyalty and be regarded as a transparent organization

8% We want to be seen as a part

of the same community as our

customers

6%

We want our customers to be very satisfied with the level of information and

support they get about our products


• The top two objectives for content producing brands were creating awareness (36%) and being seen as thought leaders (32%). This shows that content is still mostly used to achieve marketing objectives.

• Thought leadership was the top objective for companies in Europe (38%) as well as respondents in the manufacturing (31%), finance (33%) and retail industries (30%). This highlights the prevalent practice of producing content to provide helpful, valuable information to the consumer first, and achieve brand consideration as a by-product. North America was the only group where respondents were more likely to choose brand awareness (40%) over thought leadership (28%) as a top objective.

• Only 6% of respondents picked customer satisfaction with product information as a top objective. This is understandable given that most of the survey respondents were likely to be in a marketing role, rather than a product or support function. However, marketers could be missing an opportunity, since in many cases, customers prefer this type of informational content over the sexier, but sometimes irrelevant promotional content, such as thought leadership or awareness campaigns.

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Thought

leadership was the top objective for

the manufacturing, finance and retail

industries

9

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BRANDS PRODUCE A RANGE OF CONTENT ARCHETYPES Although awareness and thought leadership were the primary objectives for brands, we found the actual content they produced wasn’t necessarily aligned with those objectives. We identified five different types of content brands produced, each one delivering on a specific objective. Although some of these archetypes were slightly more popular than others (especially among different verticals) brands tended to produce all of them, rather than prioritizing a single archetype (see Figure 4).

These archetypes are defined as:

Content As Presence: Content that entertains and engages a broad audience while promoting brand awareness and brand health.

Content As Currency: High-value, high-investment content that helps the customer make a decision in their personal or professional lives, and promotes the brand as a subject matter expert.

Content As a Window: Inward focused content that highlights the brand’s employees, practices and culture, promoting transparency and trust with the customer.

Content As Support: Product-focused content that educates customers about specific features and helps them operate, repair and best utilize the brand’s products.

Content As Community: Content that promotes and serves a niche community of customers that is supported by the brand.

For more on how to choose the right

content archetype for your strategy, download the Altimeter report Key Elements for Building A

Content Strategy, by Omar Akhtar and Mat Zucker

http://www2.prophet.com/buildingacontentstrategy



• Majority of respondents produced Content as Currency (24%) and content that promoted awareness and brand health (22%) than other content types. Again, this indicates the marketing bias of most content producers, since this is the type of content most likely to be created by content marketers. However, there wasn’t a huge spread in the distribution of content archetypes, which shows that brands found value in producing each one.

• Although 20% of brands picked Content as Support as their most produced archetype, only 6% of brands said their top objective was to provide customers with information and support about products. This shows that although the company is producing support content, the central content team, whose objectives are more likely to be awareness and thought leadership, is not necessarily the department producing it.

• Top content archetypes vary by vertical. This shows that there is no single “best” type of content. Each industry should produce the type of content that is most likely to solve its particular customer’s needs and meet the business’s objectives.

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FIGURE 4.

MOST PRODUCED TYPES OF CONTENTQuestion: Which of the following types of content is most frequently produced by your organization?

22% Content As

Presence24% Content As

Currency

20% Content As

Support

18% Content As A

Window

16% Content As Community


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• For IT, Content as Currency (31%) was the top content archetype. Content as a Window was the next most popular (22%), ahead of Content as Support at 16%. This was surprising given that IT customers are more likely to make purchase decisions based on product information, rather than company/brand focused content, and it shows that many IT content teams may be missing an opportunity to deliver exactly the content that will be most relevant to their customers.

• We had expected the retail industry to mostly produce content that promotes brand awareness, but instead the top choices were Content as a Window (52%) and Content as Support (50%). A possible explanation is that by highlighting internal practices and employees, retail companies may have a better chance distinguishing their brand through transparency and building trust rather than by being entertaining and promotional.

• In the finance industry, product focused content (48%) was slightly more produced than Content as Currency (45%). This shows that in verticals where products might be complicated and consumers need plenty of information to make a decision, Content as Support might be more effective, as opposed to thought leadership or ad campaigns.

With the advent of better technology and influx of content creators coming from the media industry, most companies are able to produce the majority of their content in-house (see Figure 5). However, companies also continued to use outside agencies and rely on user or customer-generated content to maintain their output of engaging material.

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COMPANIES CREATE MOST CONTENT IN HOUSE

FIGURE 5.

HOW CONTENT CREATION IS DISTRIBUTEDQuestion: How much of your branded content is produced via the following means?

Content produced in-house

Customer or user generated content

Content produced by outside agencies

23% 45%

22% 8 2

23% 39%

27% 9 2

13% 30%

29% 17 11

All A Lot Some Very Little None

• 68% of respondents produce “All” or “A lot” of their content in-house. This makes sense as software continues to make it easy to create and edit content across a variety of digital formats. Creating content locally is also more efficient when compared to the sharing of customer data, and the continuous monitoring and approvals (not to mention costs) associated with agency created content.

• A high number of respondents (62%) relied on customers to generate the majority of their content. This number was particularly high in IT, where at 68%, user-generated content was higher than in-house (66%) or agency created content (41%). For the more B2B-centric IT companies, user-generated content can be a cost-efficient way to compensate for their traditionally lower advertising budgets, while simultaneously engaging communities of product users and enthusiasts.

• 43% of brands used agencies to create the majority of their content. This number was higher for the retail industry (50%), the only vertical where agency created content (50%) was higher than customer-generated content (47%). This can be explained by retail’s traditionally higher advertising budgets and focus on campaign-based marketing, which is typically agency work.

68%

of respondents produce “All” or “A lot” of their

content in-house.


ALMOST ALL COMPANIES USE DATA TO CREATE CONTENTAlthough companies still had difficulty in unifying customer data from multiple sources, almost all of them (99%) use some form of data to inform their content creation. This shows that producing targeted, relevant and data-based content is now common for modern brands. Figure 6 shows the most popular sources of data that content creators used.

• The top digital sources for customer data are social media metrics (65%) and web analytics (63%) This is not surprising as these are the most readily available sources of data, even for companies with the most basic technology platforms.

• The fact that 49% of respondents used call center records and 43% used CRM system data shows the growing cooperation between the sales, service and marketing departments. This is the first, and most important step in organizations working to deliver a unified customer experience.

FIGURE 6.

DATA SOURCES USED TO CREATE RELEVANT CONTENTQuestion: What sources of data do you use to create personalized/targeted content? (Choose 3)

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63%Website analytics

Customer service/ call-center records

49%

Social media metrics

65%

Customer surveys/ research 48%

CRM Systems

43%

Third-party databases

27%1%

We do not use data to create

content


FACEBOOK AND EMAIL ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE CHANNELS FOR DELIVERING CONTENT

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Email Website/ company

blogMobile

appOnline forums

Messaging apps

71% 61% 56% 51%

42% 42% 37% 28%

20% 19% 14%

Facebook was the top

digital channel for 71% of respondents, and it led the list in

every subgroup as well

Companies face an ever-increasing number of choices for the digital channels they can use to reach their customers. We asked respondents which digital channels received the most engagement for their content, in terms of views, shares or conversion activity (Figure 7). The results show that the most common, mainstream channels of Facebook and email were still the most effective places for content delivery.

FIGURE 7.

DIGITAL CHANNELS WITH THE MOST ENGAGEMENT FOR CONTENTQuestion: Which digital channels get the most engagement for your content? (Choose 5)


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• Facebook was the top digital channel for 71% of respondents, and it led the list in every subgroup as well. Facebook’s massive reach, and its status as the leading platform to discover and consume content make it a natural top choice for content creators. However, given that Facebook’s organic reach is only about 1%, it is likely that most of this engagement is driven by paid content amplification on the platform, an important lesson for any content strategist looking to engage on social media channels.

• Email continues to be a dependable workhorse, with 61% of respondents picking it as a top channel for engagement. It’s a reminder that a channel doesn’t have to be new, or Millennial-focused (e.g. Snapchat) for it to be effective.

• Twitter (41%) ranked ahead of Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Pinterest. Despite being criticized for not growing fast enough or catering only to media elites, Twitter was still a valuable, and effective channel for brands trying to reach audiences through content. This was the case in both North America and Europe. And for the IT industry, Twitter was second only to Facebook, with 52% of the respondents’ vote. The only industry where Twitter ranked comparatively low was manufacturing, where at 31%, it was behind both LinkedIn (33%) and Instagram (43%.)

• Messaging apps were at the bottom of the list with only 14% choosing it as a top digital channel. However, this is most likely due to the difficulty of getting accurate content engagement data from these platforms, which obscures the true volume of content being viewed and shared on these platforms.

A channel doesn’t have to be new, or

Millennial-focused for it to be effective

Twitter was still a valuable, and effective

channel for brands trying to reach

audiences through content

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THE MOST EFFECTIVE CONTENT FORMATS VARY BY INDUSTRY

Responses vary greatly

by industry and geography

Although overall static images and native advertising were rated as the most engaging content formats (Figure 8), we saw responses vary greatly by industry and geography. This highlights the importance of companies determining which content formats work best for their audiences and

strategy, instead of trying to publish in

every format.

FIGURE 8.

MOST ENGAGING DIGITAL CONTENT FORMATSQuestion: What content formats are the most effective at engaging your customers? (Choose 4)

Static images (photos, infographics) 47%

Native advertising

Long-form research reports/whitepapers

Short-form blog posts

Audio (podcasts/short clips)

Animated GIFs

Long-form video (longer than 2 minutes)

Short-form video (shorter than 2 minutes)

46%

41%

41%

36%

23%

18%

36%


• Static images (47%) unsurprisingly were at the top of the list, given that they are cheaper to produce, convey a lot of information on limited space, and generally receive higher rates of engagement than text on almost all social media channels.

• Native advertising was a top pick for 46% of respondents, a figure which increased to 54% for respondents in the retail industry. Although a native ad could technically be in any format listed in this chart, we included it to see how effective companies considered the practice, especially compared to unpaid content. This finding shows just how important it is to support brand-produced content with ad dollars for promotion, underscoring the fact that paid reach is more effective than organic reach.

• Surprisingly, video content, both long form (23%) and short form (18%) was at the bottom of the list. Even though video creation and editing are one of the most in-demand skills for content strategists next year (see Figure 14), the format wasn’t rated as particularly effective. This could be attributed to the relatively large amount of resources that video requires to produce, which may make it difficult for brands to produce it at scale and achieve high engagement numbers.

• The only segment where video performed above average was the healthcare industry, where 31% and 29% of the respondents picked short-form video and long-form video respectively. This makes sense as healthcare companies often need to inspire trust and confidence in their customers, and showcasing the companies’ products, employees and practices through video is an effective way to do this. This also makes video especially well suited for companies that are adopting the Content as a Window strategy archetype.

• In North America, short-form blog posts (48%) were the top format, ahead of long-form research (38%). But in Europe, these results were flipped, with Europeans showing a greater appetite for long-form research (46%) over short-form blog posts (30%). This was also the case in the retail (43% vs 39%), manufacturing (50% vs 41%), and healthcare industries where long-form research was actually the top choice among all content formats (46% vs 40%).

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Images generally receive higher rates of

engagement than text on almost all social

media channels

SUCCESS IS STILL MEASURED IN MARKETING METRICS

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Over half the respondents still had difficulty proving the business impact of content (see Figure 2). One reason for this could be the over-reliance on digital marketing-focused metrics such as views, likes and shares, which are easier to track compared to business impact metrics such as direct sales or cost saving. This was reflected in the results of our question on which metrics were most likely used to measure the success of content (Figure 9).

FIGURE 9.

MOST POPULAR METRICS FOR MEASURING CONTENTQuestion: What is the most common metric your company uses to measure the success of its content?

37% Reach

(e.g. likes, views) 36% Engagement

(e.g. clicks, shares,

comments, mentions)

11% Inbound

(e.g. time spent on website/owned

properties)

11% Conversion

(e.g. downloads, direct sales)

5%

Efficiency (e.g. cost savings on

customer support calls)


• Reach (37%) and engagement (36%) were by far the most popular metrics used to measure content performance. Not only is this an indicator of marketing’s ownership of content measurement, it shows that social media is still the most common way to deliver content, as these stats can most easily be measured on social platforms.

• These results correspond with our earlier finding of awareness and thought leadership credibility being top objectives for content strategists. Reach and engagement are the two most likely metrics used to measure the success of both these objectives (see Figure 3).

• Although time spent on owned properties and conversions are greater indicators of business impact than either reach or engagement only 11% of respondents used these as their top metrics. This makes the case for content strategists to focus on quality, rather than quantity when it comes to engaging audiences. It also calls for increasing efforts in personalization/real-time delivery to up conversion rates and time spent on owned channels.

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This makes the

case for content strategists to focus on quality, rather

than quantity when it comes to engaging

audiences.

DEDICATED CONTENT AND DATA TEAMS LEAD THE CONTENT STRATEGYExecuting a central content strategy with a unified approach requires much coordination between all customer-facing departments. However, most companies opted to have a centralized content team creating and executing the content strategy, rather than enabling multiple teams to create content, even if they had input in the strategy.

FIGURE 10.

HOW COMPANIES ARE ORGANIZED FOR PRODUCING CONTENTQuestion: Which of the following best describes how your company is organized for producing branded content?

47% Centralized:

A dedicated content team manages all content

production for several functions

32% Decentralized:

No one department manages and

coordinates the content strategy

12% Hub and Spoke:

A central content team helps various departments

produce content

10%

Holistic: Every department produces content independently while following a central strategy

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• The most common organization model is “centralized” (47%) which depends on a dedicated content team to lead and execute the content strategy. This is a more progressive way to produce content instead of “decentralized,” since it allows one team to create and implement a consistent strategy. However, these central departments still tend to fall under the marketing umbrella, making it difficult to progress beyond a department-centric content strategy.

• 32% of respondents consider their organization to be “decentralized” with multiple departments producing content without a clear central strategy. This highlights the problem of content in the digital age. Scaling the production of content it isn’t as much of an issue as it used to be, since technology has made it cheaper and easier. The challenge is now more about getting multiple units to align against a central strategy, and proving the results of that strategy.

• 22% of companies had either a Hub and Spoke or Holistic model, which is a sign of maturity, and increased participation by non-marketing departments.

• Manufacturing was the only industry where the holistic model (21%) was more prevalent than the decentralized model (12%). This highlights a willingness to empower multiple content producers in the company. On the other hand, finance was the only industry where the majority of companies were decentralized (45%) indicating a very siloed approach to production.

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The challenge is

now more about getting multiple

units to align against a central

strategy

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FIGURE 11A.

LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION FOR CREATING CONTENT STRATEGY BY DEPARTMENT (LEADING)Question: For every department listed below, please indicate whether it is leading, participating or not involved in creating your company’s content strategy

FIGURE 11B.

LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION FOR CREATING CONTENT STRATEGY BY DEPARTMENT (PARTICIPATING)Question: For every department listed below, please indicate whether it is leading, participating or not involved in creating your company’s content strategy

Corporate Communications/PR 50%

Market Research

Social Team

Marketing

Product Development/R&D

Customer Support

Content Team

Sales

Data/Analytics

Advertising/Ad Agency

Executive/C-Suite

Advertising/Ad Agency

Data/Analytics

Executive/C-Suite

Content Team

Customer Support

Product Development/R&D

Marketing

Sales

Social Team

Corporate Communications/PR

Market Research

47%

40%

43%

43%

42%

41%

41% 41%

37%

37%

52%

51%

50%

48% 50%

45%

44%

43%

42%

42%

36%

We found that more teams than ever are involved in creating a content strategy, although advertising, content and data teams are most likely to be leading these discussions. However, there wasn’t a big spread between departments that were leading (Figure 11a) and departments that were only participating (Figure 11b) in setting the brand’s content strategy. In a way, this is another reflection of the high degree of participation from non-marketing departments. On the other hand, it also reflects the increasing difficulty brands face in setting a content strategy that can satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholders, not to mention the customers.


• The teams responsible for advertising (52%), data (51%) and content (50%) were marginally more likely to be leaders in creating the brand’s content strategy. Advertising and content were expected since they have both traditionally been responsible for brand content production and delivery, for both paid and unpaid platforms. But the presence of the data team at the top underscores how many companies are looking to data and analytics to inform their strategy, which is a welcome sign of digital maturity.

• For the retail industry, traditional marketing (46%) was more likely to be leading the content strategy (41%) than the dedicated content team, which shows that retail still follows the traditional approach of having content be a marketing function, rather than a standalone unit which serves other departments.

• Corporate Communications was less likely to be leading the content strategy (42%) than participating (50%). Given how big a role comms has had in driving the use of digital branded content, it is surprising that it did not get a larger percentage of “leading” in the survey. The only group where comms was more likely to be leading content strategy was healthcare, with 54% of respondents choosing it as a leader.

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The presence of the data team at the top underscores

how many companies are looking to data and analytics to inform their

strategy, which is a welcome sign of digital maturity

We found companies were increasing their investment in all types of software related to content (see Figure 12). However, the highest increase was in content-creation software. Companies were also increasing investment in software for real-time/personalization as well as advertising. Although increasing investment in software is necessary for executing sophisticated digital content operations, it’s worth remembering that strategy should drive the acquisition of the relevant technology needed to execute, not the other way round.

BRANDS ARE INCREASING INVESTMENT IN CONTENT CREATION SOFTWARE

FIGURE 12.

LEVELS OF INVESTMENT IN CONTENT TECHNOLOGYQuestion: For the following types of tools, please indicate whether your level of investment in 2017 is increasing, decreasing or staying the same.

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New standards in

regulatory and compliance

Content creation software (CMS, content curation, editing software)

Content delivery software (Social media publishing, email, website management, mobile app management)

Real-time/personalization (web optimization, email triggers,

personalized advertising tools)

Content advertising software (programmatic advertising, content

amplification, social media ads)

Content management software (planning, scheduling,

digital asset management)

Content measurement software (Social media listening, content metrics)

69% 21% 10%

Increasing % Staying the Same % Decreasing %

48% 33% 18%

53% 31% 16%

51% 30% 19%

50% 32% 17%

49% 29% 22%

Content creation

software (69%) had the highest

level of increasing investment


• Content creation software (69%) had the highest level of increasing investment. This corresponds to one of the top challenges faced by companies, which is to create content at a larger scale (see Figure 2).

• Over half (51%) of respondents were increasing investment in software that helped them create and deliver personalized content in real-time. This is an indicator of digital content maturity, and a necessary investment for any company looking to compete on the basis of content engagement. The retail industry was the only segment where real-time/personalization software had the most increasing investment (59%).

• 50% of respondents said they were increasing their investment in content advertising software. This signifies a shift in how companies think about owned content. As social media networks favor paid posts over organic, content marketers can’t just get by on reaching audiences virally. They have to use ad dollars in order to get reach. Given how many respondents consider Facebook to be their top digital channel for content delivery, we can expect to see investment in content advertising tools increase in 2017.

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Over half (51%) of

respondents were increasing investment

in software that helped them create and

deliver personalized content in real-time

Although companies are still looking to hire content editors and writers, the most desired skill in 2017 is data analysis (Figure 13). This again indicates the increasing sophistication of content strategists today, who rely on actionable data insights for creating content rather than just creative instinct.

• 67% of content strategists rated “data analysis” as a top skill they were hiring for in 2017, followed closely by content editing/writing (59%) and project management (53%). This shows just how crucial data is to brands striving to create targeted, relevant content and offers to customers. Data analysts/scientists who can work across functions and make sense of data from multiple sources are highly valuable in the digital age.

• “Social media expertise” was picked by only 18% of respondents as a top skill. This shows how ubiquitous the use of social has become in companies. It has truly graduated from being a groundbreaking technology to ordinary, everyday technology. Soon, having “social media expertise” on a resume will be as meaningful as having “experience with Microsoft Word and Excel.”

DATA ANALYSIS IS THE MOST DESIRED SKILL FOR CONTENT STRATEGISTS

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FIGURE 13.

MOST POPULAR SKILLS FOR CONTENT STRATEGISTS IN 2017Question: What are the most important skills you are looking to hire for in 2017? (Choose 4)

Data analysis 67%

Content editing and writing

Program/project management

Graphic design

Coding/development

Video production and editing

Marketing automation/software expertise

Social media expertise

59%

53%

50%

47%

42%

18%

50%


Another indicator of the increasing maturity of content-producing brands was their commitment to involving more departments in setting a unified content strategy. This was the top initiative in 2017, followed by increasing ad spend to amplify owned content.

ALIGNING MULTIPLE DEPARTMENTS AROUND CONTENT STRATEGY IS THE TOP FUTURE INITIATIVE

FIGURE 14.

LEVEL OF INVESTMENT IN FUTURE INITIATIVESQuestion: For each of the listed activities, please indicate whether you are increasing, decreasing or not changing the amount of time and resources you spend in 2017.

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Involve more departments in setting a unified, central content strategy

Amplify branded content by using ad dollars

Create more video content

Integrate multiple software systems to share customer data

Invest in technology that enables real-time delivery and personalization data

Use more data to create content that serves the customer journey

70% 19% 10%

Increasing No change Decreasing

46% 32% 22%

53% 31% 16%

53% 31% 16%

49% 31% 20%

48% 31% 20%

Restructure organization to follow a central content strategy

Use better techniques and technology to measure the impact of content

Create editorial guidelines and content criteria to reduce waste

Increase the production of branded content and deliver it at scale

Hire more branded content specialists

55% 24% 21%

53% 27% 20%

53% 31% 16%

52% 27% 21%

48% 31% 20%


• The top priority for content strategists in 2017 is to unify multiple departments around a central content strategy, with 70% of respondents saying they were increasing efforts around this initiative. This shows increasing support for the idea of a unified content strategy, rather than the marketing-centric approach of previous years. It has positive implications for company efforts in improving the customer experience as well.

• The use of data-based content to serve the customer journey was at the bottom of the list (46%). This shows that although brands were willing to engage multiple departments, it was more difficult to unify data from these different departments to create a holistic picture of the customer journey. North American respondents (59%) showed more progress in this area.

• Consistent with earlier findings, more content teams are using advertising dollars to promote branded content (55%). Another highly recommended initiative given what we know about the lack of reach for non-paid content on social media channels.

• Video is a top priority, (53%) and brands have indicated that they are hiring for video skills in 2017 (see Figure 13). However, video’s low engagement numbers mean strategists (see Figure 8) are either skeptical about whether its impact justifies what it costs to produce, or they haven’t been able to accurately measure its impact across platforms. Video was also a top pick for the manufacturing (64%), finance (62%) and healthcare industries (60%).

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Based on the results of this study, we make the following recommendations to brands and content strategists planning initiatives and investments in 2017.

• Benchmark and act on your level of maturity. The biggest takeaway from this study is that brands are becoming much more holistic in their use of content, leveraging it beyond marketing, and using it to drive real business impact. As a result, they have more participation from multiple departments, support from executive leadership and are embracing sophisticated technologies such as real-time content delivery and data-based personalization. If your company lacks these indicators of maturity, now is the time to evaluate it against these benchmark results and chart a roadmap to digital maturity.

• Engage multiple teams for a unified content strategy. The majority of respondents made this their top priority in 2017, and with good reason. Our survey shows that marketing isn’t the only team that has a stake in using digital content. For a unified content strategy, evaluate the needs and goals of all customer-facing teams, such as sales, service, product and even HR. In turn, they can provide you with whatever customer data they have in order to create a comprehensive view of the customer, and the customer journey. Not only does this enable the creation of a unified content strategy, it is the first step towards optimizing the digital customer experience.

• Focus on content that matches your objectives. In our study, most companies only focused on brand awareness and thought leadership as objectives, but spent their resources creating all types of content. Not only should brands consider objectives other than marketing-centric ones such as awareness, they should also focus on content archetypes that deliver on these objectives, rather than producing all types. As our research shows, each archetype has value, and brands must determine which one will have the most impact on their specific business objective and customers needs.

CONCLUSION: ACTIONS TO CONSIDER

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• Be selective about content formats and channels. Our results showed that the most engaging formats and channels varied across industry. This should inspire content strategists to be more selective about which channels and formats they will use in their strategies, basing these decisions on customer needs and behaviors, rather than simply following common trends.

• Invest in data. With 99% of respondents saying they create content based on some form of data, its clear that modern content creators cannot afford to create content in a vacuum. Access customer data from multiple parts of the organization to create content that is highly personalized and relevant to your customer. This will give your content the best chance of engagement. It requires investing in the right technology that will allow you to gain insights from multi-source customer data, and also hiring people with the skills to interpret actionable data and inform content creators.

• Support content with ad spend. Advertising budgets have been traditionally separate from content marketing budgets, but this is becoming more difficult to justify. Results of our study show that paying to promote content is far more effective than organically trying to reach that same audience. This is especially true for content delivery on social media platforms, where brands are expected to pay for any real type of reach and engagement.

• Go beyond marketing metrics. Finally, consider the impact of content beyond the marketing department. While metrics such as reach, shares or “likes” will always be essential to marketing objectives; content can also benefit sales and service departments. Try measuring content in terms of sales conversions, funnel movement, time and money saved and even direct sales. While some of this requires putting technology in place, it mostly demands a shift in mindset, and greater collaboration between the customer facing departments of the company.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff for providing clarity and vision for this research and Mat Zucker on the Prophet team for his invaluable insights and encouragement. Additional thanks to Briana Schweizer, for the production and design behind our publications, Aubrey Littleton for organizing our research outreach and survey process, Julia Dennison, Katie Lamkin, Lindsay Malone, and the greater Prophet team.

Our survey partners, Phronesis Partners conducted an online survey of 518 professionals

who were either leading, or part of the team responsible for creating and executing their

company’s content strategy. The survey was conducted between August and September of

2016. Of the 518 respondents, 323 were from North America (US, Canada) and 195 were from

Europe, (UK, France and Germany). Only respondents from companies with greater than 500

employees were considered, and there was an even distribution of industries.

METHODOLOGY

PERMISSIONS The Creative Commons License is Attribution-Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 United States, which can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/.

DISCLAIMER ALTHOUGH THE INFORMATION AND DATA USED IN THIS REPORT HAVE BEEN PRODUCED AND PROCESSED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE, NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED IS MADE REGARDING THE COMPLETENESS, ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, OR USE OF THE INFORMATION. THE AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS OF THE INFORMATION AND DATA SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY FOR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS CONTAINED HEREIN OR FOR INTERPRETATIONS THEREOF. REFERENCE HEREIN TO ANY SPECIFIC PRODUCT OR VENDOR BY TRADE NAME, TRADEMARK, OR OTHERWISE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE OR IMPLY ITS ENDORSEMENT, RECOMMENDATION, OR FAVORING BY THE AUTHORS OR CONTRIBUTORS AND SHALL NOT BE USED FOR ADVERTISING OR PRODUCT ENDORSEMENT PURPOSES. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

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OPEN RESEARCH This independent research report was 100% funded by Altimeter, a Prophet Company. This report is published under the principle of Open Research and is intended to advance the industry at no cost. This report is intended for you to read, utilize, and share with others; if you do so, please provide attribution to Altimeter, a Prophet Company.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

OMAR AKHTAROmar Akhtar (@obakhtar) is the Managing Editor and analyst at Altimeter, a Prophet Company where he oversees the editorial process behind all of Altimeter’s publications, including its research reports, daily blog and multimedia content. In addition, he conducts and publishes research on marketing technology, content strategy and customer experience. Previously he was the editor-in-chief of the marketing tech blog The Hub, and a technology and finance reporter for Fortune.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Altimeter, a Prophet Company, is a research and strategy consulting firm that helps companies understand and take advantage of digital disruption. In 2015, Prophet acquired Altimeter Group to bring forward-thinking digital research and strategy consulting together under one umbrella and to help clients unlock the power of digital transformation. Altimeter, founded in 2008 by best-selling author Charlene Li, focuses on research in digital transformation, social business and governance, customer experience, Big Data, and content strategy.

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