By Natalie Giddings Co-owner & Director at The Remarkables Group
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has issued the results of a study on Australian Content Marketing. At The Remarkables Group, we consider ourselves in the content marketing mix, so we attended Content Marketing World in Cleveland in September this year. For the first time, there was a dedicated influencer marketing stream. A solid influencer marketing strategy is very much based on co-creating content between a brand and an influencer. The difference between your own in-house content marketing efforts and influencers is that the influencers bring a built-in, activated audience with them.
The four key takeouts are:
- Building Audience: More survey respondents are focusing on building audiences this year than last, which is a great sign. 85% of Australian respondents agree their organisation is focused on building an audience, versus 69% last year. A 23% YOY increase, which is even higher than the 18% year-over-year increase reported by North American marketers.
- Audience First Approach: Putting the audience first is critical to creating content marketing success. This is the number one reason Australian influencers, particularly over the last 18 months, have been able to amass audiences. But brands are still grappling with this.
- Less Overall Content is Being Produced: 48% of respondents always or frequently deliver content consistently (e.g., on a regularly scheduled basis) compared with 60% last year. That is a 20% year-over-year decrease. Our assessment of this isn’t that businesses don’t see content marketing as any less important, but rather well-planned creative, with a solid distribution plan, means you don’t need to create content for content’s sake. Plus let’s not mention the disillusion of algorithms and second newsfeeds.
- Top 3 Platforms to Distribute Content: Australian marketers believe the three most effective platforms for delivering content are email, social media and blogs. There’s often a huge missed opportunity here. Leveraging influencer content across brand-owned platforms is still missing in most Australian organisations due to a lack of three core things: forward planning, consultation, and a concrete strategy.
Download the complete 2018 Australian Content Marketing Report.
