New Research Reveals More Than Half of Marketers Are Not Delivering the Right Content

By STS News Desk On May 9, 2019

New Research Reveals More Than Half of Marketers Are Not Delivering the Right Content

Vennli’s “Optimize Content Marketing Performance Through Active Audience Listening” Whitepaper, in Partnership with the Content Marketing Institute, Highlights Obstacles Marketers Face in Executing Planned Strategies

Vennli, a content intelligence platform, announces the release of its “Optimize Content Marketing Performance Through Active Audience Listening” whitepaper. The whitepaper, in partnership with the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), uncovers the challenges marketers face with technology, content strategy and lack of confidence in planning new content.

According to 2019 survey results, 60 percent of respondents say their organization has a documented content management strategy in place. This is in comparison to last year’s survey where only 43 percent of those surveyed had a documented strategy for managing content in place. While the increase in content strategy is positive, many marketers are unable to implement these strategies. Almost half (48 percent) of the respondents shared that their typical approach to content is “project-focused,” meaning they create content in response to internal requests, instead of in alignment with a planned strategy. In fact, only 22 percent of marketers build content around buyer personas and less than 15 percent align content to the customer journey.

“It’s clear that companies know what message they want to convey to their target audiences,” said Marty Muse, CEO at Vennli. “However, what they want to say versus what their customers want to hear doesn’t always match. Incorporating solutions, like content intelligence, can confirm the right messages at the right time at the right place so that marketing teams no longer have to guess.”

In addition to the inability to implement content strategies, marketers’ confidence in delivering the right content is not as strong as one would think. When asked about whether their organization is delivering the right content to the right person at the right time, 51 percent of respondents either remained neutral or disagreed. Only 10 percent of respondents felt strongly they were delivering the right content.

“What the research revealed is that today’s marketers are too busy managing content to manage content well,” said Robert Rose, chief strategy officer at CMI. “Many marketers know exactly what they want to say only because they are reacting to internal content requests from other parts of the business. But they, unfortunately, don’t know what audiences want to hear, because they haven’t implemented listening strategies to truly understand their customer’s needs.”

Data for the report was collected during the months of January and February of 2019. CMI surveyed 250 marketers to learn more about their approaches to managing content. Qualified respondents were those who indicated 1) their organization takes a strategic approach to managing content and 2) they are involved with some aspect of strategic content management in their organization. Agencies and consultants were excluded.