Being committed to content marketing is a no-brainer requirement for success. But what may be surprising is how a small shift in commitment level can make a BIG difference in overall content marketing success.
This striking insight came from analyzing the U.K. data from our annual content marketing survey, as reported in today’s release of Content Marketing in the United Kingdom 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends sponsored by Tomorrow People.
As you can see in the chart, only 5% of the “somewhat committed” report high success versus 38% of the “most committed” group.
With that revelation in mind, here are five actionable insights for emulating these highly determined U.K. content marketers. These areas are the biggest opportunities for improvement – where we observed the biggest gaps between the “somewhat” and the “extremely/very” committed content marketers.
1. Strengthen your commitment
What does your organization need to bump up into the extremely/very committed zone?
- More buy in? Support is critical to success. If you need help explaining the benefits of content marketing to your management team, check out Looking for Content Strategy Buy-In? Don’t Rely on the Same Old Arguments.
- A different mindset or more determination? Set reasonable goals, document your strategy, create expectations based on your company and available resources, and put good processes in place.
CMI founder Joe Pulizzi believes in this concept so strongly that he once said, “If you’re not ‘all in’ with your content marketing program, you should stop.”
- Bigger budget or just refocused priorities? Even though our research shows the most committed allocate more of their total marketing budget to content marketing than the less committed, this is by no means a requirement. In fact, 48% of the total U.K. sample expect their content marketing budget to remain the same over the next 12 months. Does that mean they can’t strengthen their commitment to content marketing? Absolutely not. When budget feels like a limiting issue, look at where you’re spending. Discontinue some less successful activities to concentrate on those that yield the best results (55% of the total U.K. respondents agree their organizations are doing this, which is fantastic news).
2. Be more strategic
The U.K. marketers who are the most committed are far more likely to have a documented content marketing strategy than those who are somewhat committed (58% vs. 19% – a 39-percentage-point difference).
CMI research consistently shows that marketers who…
