Trending – What is really happening with Content Marketing in 2016

Global content marketing spend, according to PQ media, reached $150 billion in 2015 and is projected to become a $300 billion industry in the next four years. However producing content for content sake is a 2015 tactic that will become more redundant in 2016. 2015 comfort metrics such as shares and likes will be replaced in 2016 with more meaningful measures such as engagement, reach and audience.

2015 was the year that content marketing hit a production v performance crossroad – a tipping point. According to the CMI 76% of marketers stating that they will produce more content in 2016 compared to 2015. However Only 30% of marketers surveyed stated that their organizations are effective at content marketing.

Below are the trends I am actually seeing in market right now;

2016 will see CMO’s and C-level executives take more active involvement in accessing how content performs as they increasingly becoming more accountable for driving ROI from their content and digital marketing efforts. The focus will be on working content solutions that tie back to revenue and intelligent production of content.

Read more on this in this BrightEdge and iProspect paper and on MarketingLand

• In general, investment in content marketing technology will grow, with a key emphasis on building content marketing technology stacks that measure, attribute and help align monetary value and content campaign execution. However, many organizations that focus on last click attribution of content will ultimately fail.
• Attribution modelling will become more sophisticated as marketers to look to measure how content performs at various stages of the buyer journey and across multiple formats. Content attribution will involve tracking the types of content AND the individuals or organizational teams responsible for top performing content.

Read more here from Kapost on content scoring

• C-CRM (Content CRM) will grow as a discipline as content creation, automation and workflow systems look to integrate with CRM systems to track content performance beyond likes, share and traffic and into the heart of organization sales, marketing and customer success models. Expect to see many mergers of workflow/process content organizations and online/measurement content providers.

Read more about this in my article on Relevance.com

• New organizational structures will develop such as Marketing Revenue Centres built on content marketing best practices, integration with all digital departments and reporting performance. Many organizations will struggle with recruiting and talent management as fake content marketers battleground for control of credible content authors and resources.

Read more about this in my Huffington Post article

• Successful Scaling of content will be dependant upon ‘redefining content cultures’ based on producing content that is driven by audience demand, optimized and distributed accordingly, and built to measure.

Read more about this in the 2016 Contentive Digital Marketing Report

• Expect to see certain elements of content marketing fall under the remit of Chief Revenue Officers and Chief Digital Officers – an indication that senior executives aren’t willing to devote resources to content if it’s not being tracked to some form of ROI.

Read more about this in my artricle on CMO.com

Read more about the ABC's of digital marketing from Gartner 

• The term ‘influence’ will be redefined and will no longer based on vanity metrics such as likes and shares and followers. List marketing and ego bait will become viewed as ‘spam / grey hat content marketing’. Real influence will be defined by individual’s success at a business level. i.e. the brands they work with, the audiences that engages with their content and the success and outcomes achieved.

Read more about this in my article on  SearchEngineWatch

• Success metrics will include multiple measures and move beyond just online metrics. Senior level executives in organizations will recognize that content affects more than just online marketing. For example, the role content plays in performance and lift for HR (recruitment), customer service, product groups, PR, and corporate messaging. Measures of content performance will be expanded throughout organizations and aligned to wider organizational goals. 

Read more about this on the Content Marketing Institute (CMI)

About Andy Betts

Andy Betts is a chief marketer, consultant and digital hybrid with more than 20 years of experience in digital, technology and marketing working across London, Europe, New York, and San Francisco. He works as an adviser and consultant for start-ups, agencies, and leading Fortune 500 companies. He spends considerable time consulting, writing and ghost writing with C-level executives in technology and marketing communities on strategic marketing, digital content and public relations. Andy also writes and reports for leading digital marketing publications and media outlets.