Content Marketing Spending Points Up

Recession or not, marketers still investing in their own content.

By Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute

See the FULL 2012 Content Marketing Research Report Here.

Even in tough economic times, money is still flowing into content marketing initiatives. In a December, 2008 research study of Junta42 subscribers, 56% of marketing- and publishing-decision makers plan to increase their content marketing spending for 2009 (31% increase significantly, 25% increase slightly). Only 13% plan on decreasing their content marketing spend (9% decrease slightly, 4% decrease significantly).

Surveyed marketers were very clear that social media spending will be on the top of their investment list in 2009. In terms of most important products/tactics, social media (other than blogs) resonated with 68% of subscribers, followed by enewsletters/email (60%), blogs (56%), case studies (55%), online video (51%), white papers (46%) and microsites (43%). (Survey takers were allowed to choose more than one tactic.)

Content spending speeds up as economy slows down

If you compare these research findings to a BtoB/Junta42 study just nine months before, the recession has had little impact on content marketing spending. Actually, you can make a case that corporate content spending has increased as the economic outlook has decreased.

In the March, 2008 study, 42% of marketers stated an increase in their content marketing spending. That's 14% less than the current finding of 56%.

What it means

Why are we seeing this trend? The simple reason may be the flight to retention. As the economy worsens, more corporate marketers focus on keeping their current customers by showing clear value through relevant content distribution. But the more likely story is that we've seen a clear shift away from "interruption" style media toward content marketing and social media, which seeks to add value to a conversation instead of a "sales through distraction" mentality.

In the past, there was a clear distinction between what was "marketing" and what was "media". Today, there is no delineation between the two. More marketers are becoming aware that they can communicate directly with customers through a variety of ever-changing media. That means telling a story, and creating valuable, relevant and compelling content that is meaningful to customers and prospects. Marketing today and tomorrow is perhaps best stated as publishing.

Survey details

For the study, content marketing was defined as "products that involve your own content creation, like web content, case studies, blogs, white papers, webinars, newsletters, enewsletters, custom magazines, etc."

The Junta42 community is made up of both corporate marketers and publishing/agency professionals. For the study, 42% were corporate marketers, 22% traditional publishers/media, 19% marketing/advertising agencies, 15% custom publishers and 3% association marketers. 85% of the surveyed audience makes marketing purchase decisions for their organizations.

The Junta42 email study was delivered during the first week of December. 1706 subscribers were invited to take the study, in which 196 completed the survey (11.5% return).

• 10 Content Marketing Tips for 2009
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