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With the growth of digitisation and the increased penetration of smartphones, content marketing has come to light like never before. However, it sees a challenge from other kinds of marketing such as influencer marketing, SEO, PPC, social media marketing, etc. How does content marketing then stand apart from the clutter and more importantly, how does it benefit brands and how do marketers rate ROI on content marketing for their business?
With content marketing, the importance of accountability has been a significant topic for the media and marketing industry for decades, but there has recently been a refocus on its relevance.
According to a study by New Base, 93% of global marketers ‘agree’ and 53% ‘strongly agree’ that ‘ROI and accountability is more important than ever’. A higher proportion of marketers in Americas ‘strongly agree’ with this statement (58%), compared to about half in EMEA and APAC.
In 2017, ROI and accountability is the second highest marketing consideration among all global marketers (44%), and tops the table in Americas. Importantly, it ranks #1 in the Marketing Priorities list among brand marketers (55%) and agencies (48%), but much further down the list for publishers, ranking #7 (29%), and arguably, this is the sector that is ultimately responsible for delivering audience, sales results and campaign success.
We spoke to a few marketers on their response to content marketing and how they rate ROI on their brands. Sushil Matey, Director-Marketing, Livpure says, “The math is measuring; the cost of production and amplification of content vs. the two key desired results. The first being quality leads and sales and the second being reach, retention and engagement with the brand.”
Prateek Kumar, CEO and MD, NeoNiche says, “Content marketing or the tactic of developing great online content that lives on your website, blogs or social handles attracts, educates and converts your audience. Based on organic traffic and its amplification we conducted research spread over three years for a services business like ours and realised that it provided 120% more ROI as against paid content via more traditional route of marketing. There was also a spurt of 20% when same was backed by SEO, SEM and keyword amplification. Simply put, we realised that content marketing creates knowledge and information which triggers the target audience to become the evangelist if it strikes the right emotional chord.”
According to a report published by PQ media (provider of media econometrics) global content marketing revenues jumped 14% in 2016 to $28 billion, fuelled by double-digit growth in branded mobile content, digital videos, branded games and social media content, according to new research from PQ Media. Positive momentum continued in the first half of 2017, as content marketing revenues grew 14% through June 30.
Anila Andrade, Associate Vice-President, Operations, 99Games said, “Almost 90% of content marketing for our products at 99Games is via owned media (social channels, predominantly Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube) and done organically. We measure ROI for content marketing by tracking Reach, Engagement and Conversions. We track the effort that goes into this and we are able to measure the conversions (installs we get) through content marketing. This is how we track it.”
A sizeable share of content marketing is handled by brands internally which, if combined with operator revenues, would expand the overall value of the global industry to $212.1 billion.
The report also suggests that along with an increase in consumer mobility over the past three decades, brand marketers have found it increasingly difficult to engage target end users due to the growing number of advertising and marketing channels available, which now exceeds 200.