Econsultancy and Oracle Marketing Cloud look at the future of content marketing in their Modern Marketing Actionable Insights Series
Content marketing has exploded over the last five years. Brands are churning out papers, blogs, tweets, posts, videos and periscopes like there’s no tomorrow. If success were measured in column inches, we could wallpaper the moon.
But content isn’t a numbers game. There’s no valour in volume.
Now that brands have got the hang largely of producing content, they need to figure out what it’s for and how to get something back in return for the reams information they’re pumping out.
The Future of Content Marketing report examines why brands should be producing content, what content is the most valuable and who owns content in the organisation. It looks beyond shiny new toys like Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence and examines what’s really going to boost sales and deliver growth.
The report covers:
- Data-driven content marketing: Content is always customised. Relevancy and context are vital, as is appropriate distribution. But content reaching the customer is far from the last mile…
- Bi-directional content: Conversations are never one-way. The best content starts a conversation and brands must be ready to manage the subsequent interactions.
- Automation: Toys are fun but they must serve a purpose. Chat bots can manage more mundane interactions and customers don’t mind interacting with a machine as long as the job gets done.
- Measurement: For content to be truly effective, you need to invest in its distribution and the subsequent interactions it creates. When money gets involved you can bet people start taking an interest in its effectiveness.
- Utility: Quite simply, if content isn’t going to be useful, bin it.
“Technology and data are continuing to play a larger role in content marketing. Marketers now have the ability to know and understand what interests their buyers. Data informs content creation, packaging and delivery planning. Each communication needs to provide something of value to the recipient and increasingly the value is contained in the content itself,” Andrea Ward, vice president of marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud.
“Marketers are increasingly on board with the need for content creation but to date its success has been measured in volume of output. It’s rapidly becoming clear that a big content library is no guarantee of success. Understanding the content customers need and respond to is going to be a big task in securing content marketing’s future and this report brings vital information to the table from highly influential content strategists and marketers,” Jim Clark, research director, Econsultancy.
Get this report
The full report is available on the Econsultancy website here.
The report is available to Econsultancy subscribers. For more information about this report, contact:
Jim Clark, Research Director, Econsultancy
jim.clark AT econsultancy.com
+44 (0) 207 269 1450
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About Oracle Marketing Cloud
Modern Marketers choose Oracle Marketing Cloud’s data-driven solutions to create engagement, orchestrate experiences, connect data, and optimize online interactions that attract and retain ideal customers. These Modern Marketing solutions connect cross-channel, content, and social marketing with data management and activation along with hundreds of pre-integrated app and data partners. Leading brands use our award-winning expertise and technology to deliver personal experiences on a proven system that marketers love and IT trusts.
Visit oracle.com/marketingcloud.
