It’s getting harder to grab eyeballs online if you’re not doing some form of content marketing.
Creating compelling content improves a company’s standing as an expert in the industry, increases the odds of being found in online searches and can spread an organization’s overall reach.
And more companies are acknowledging content creation’s ability to generate inbound leads. When marketing decision makers worldwide were asked to name their “leading focus” last year, 18.9% cited content marketing. That ranked it behind both email and social media.
In 2013, however, 34.8% cited content marketing as their leading focus, leapfrogging email and social media to take over the No. 1 spot.
That data comes from a study by marketing software company CopyPress.
Where resources are best spent
The problem, of course — because content can be expensive and time-consuming to create, and because there’s so many different ways in which to create it — is figuring out where your content-generating resources are best spent.
Here are the top five ROI-producing content channels, according to participants in the CopyPress study:
- Featured articles, like those found on company websites and blogs (62.2% voted this the best content channel)
- Video (51.9%)
- White papers (45.6%)
- Photos (37.8%), and
- Interactive media (36%).
One in four hit ’em from all sides
Some companies also feel it’s best to take a multi-platform approach.
Media company SmartBrief polled its SmartBlog on Social Media e-newsletter readers, asking how many content channels their companies have.
The results:
- 25.49% of respondents said five or more
- 20.59% said three
- 15.69% said four
- 12.75% said five
- 12.75% said two
- 9.80% said zero, and
- 2.94% said one.
