Fast Lane: The age of content marketing is here

Does your business have a content marketing strategy?

Content marketing is about creating or sharing content that your target market might find helpful or entertaining.

According to the latest benchmarking report from The Content Marketing Institute, marketers are finding more and more consumers are open to this kind of marketing, especially on social media.

According to the marketers surveyed in the Content Marketing in Australia 2016: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report, the effectiveness of social media content and videos has increased by 17%, while the effectiveness of content on Instagram has jumped by 14% and promoted posts are 21% more effective.

But the report also found there is still a proportion of businesses that are not measuring the effectiveness of their content marketing efforts.

Less than half of those surveyed (46%) have a documented content marketing strategy, although this is up from 37% the year before.

Almost half of the marketers surveyed (45%) were not clear on what an effective successful content marketing program looks like and less than a third (28%) said the companies they work for are effective at content marketing.

All successful marketing strategies need creative and engaging content but their execution should also be measurable.

Without knowing what worked or what didn’t work, whether it is for a traditional advertising campaign or a series of articles produced to share on your social networks, how will you improve your next campaign and the one after that?

Content marketing represents a great opportunity for you to tell more people about your business.

But approach this form of marketing as you would with the other parts of your business: develop a strategy and follow-through.

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