When it comes to content marketing and strategising Australia may just be leading the way, according to research at the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Not only does the research show that 93% of Australian companies make use of content marketing, but in many ways they are slightly ahead of counterparts in the US and UK.
Compared to similar companies in the US and UK, Australian companies are:
• More likely to have a documented content marketing strategy in place.
• More intent on creating more content this year than last year.
• More intent on increasing content marketing budgets over the next year.
• More likely to have someone in place to oversee content marketing strategy.
• Less likely to be challenged by a lack of time to create content and to produce engaging content, but more challenged when it comes to producing a variety of content.
Rather than simply write the results of the research here, we have put it in a table to make it easier to read and compare how Australia is faring:
Activity or challenge
Australia
U.S.A. United Kingdom
Has a documented content strategy in place
52% 43% 42%
Intends creating more content this year
81% 72% 76%
Plans to increase content marketing budget
69% 58% 56%
Has someone to oversee content strategy
74% 72% 71%
Has challenges in creating enough content
44% 53% 46%
Has challenges in creating engaging content
41% 47% 44%
Has challenges in creating a variety of content
41% 38% 33%
Other interesting statistics and trends
As well as the above, the research revealed some other interesting facts about content marketing in Australian companies:
• Companies use 13 content marketing tactics on average, including web articles, social media updates, e-newsletters, blogs, videos, case studies and others. E-newsletters are considered by companies to be the most effective.
• The most popular social channel is LinkedIn. This is followed by Facebook and Twitter, YouTube, and Google Plus.
• Brand awareness and engagement are considered to be the top goals in content marketing, followed by lead generation, customer acquisition, customer loyalty and website traffic.
• Web traffic is the metric used most to measure success, following by social sharing and SEO ranking.
• Companies allocate 27% of total marketing budgets to content marketing.
• The functions most frequently outsourced are writing and design, followed by content distribution.
So as you can see Australia is doing pretty well in the content marketing stakes. This is good news as it shows that Australian companies are recognising the importance and relevance of developing good content marketing strategies and goals, and that they are also taking serious steps to plan ahead for future years.
