Over the last several weeks, our friends with Adobe Marketing Cloud (@AdobeMktgCloud) have hosted a series of conversations on Twitter called #AdobeChat. These hour-long sessions bring together marketers, industry thought-leaders, and select Adobe Business Partners to discuss a range of relevant digital marketing topics including data-driven marketing, mobile experience and apps, and programmatic advertising.
The most recent #AdobeChat focused on Content Marketing, which is essential for digital marketing success today, especially when you consider:
90% of digital marketers now use content marketing
80% of buyers prefer learning about a brand through content rather than advertising
69% of marketers are producing more content that the prior year
– Content Marketing Institute Benchmark Report – 2014 & 2015
Below are the key takeaways from the discussion.
Content marketing is valuable to brands because it…
- Builds loyalty
- Helps brands stand out against the noise, even in the most crowded playing fields
- Doesn’t disrupt consumers – it provides value
- Humanizes brands, allowing them to build trust with their audience
Marketers can differentiate their content marketing through…
- Personalization – content needs to be targeted, unique, and relevant
- Creating thoughtful content
- Incorporating user-generated content (UGC) to enhance your authenticity
- Producing content that delivers value
Which publishing platforms should marketers prioritize – social, owned, or both?
- Let your platform fit the purpose
- Go where your audience is on social platforms – then engage them to drive back to your owned channels
Content marketing efforts should be measured by…
- Identifying your goals so you can measure the metrics that matter to prove success
- Considering key metrics for the channel (i.e., owned vs. social)
- Defining what is successful for each piece of content and measure against those metrics
Some of the biggest content marketing challenges today include…
- Lack of bandwidth – marketers are expected to wear many hats
- Not putting the customer first when planning/executing content strategies or creating content
- Consumers are drowning in content
- Lack of funding – budgets are frequently muddled with funds allocated for traditional media
In the future, content marketing will look like…
- Blending of interactive and visual content – virtual reality, video, UGC
- Increasingly visual – more infographics, videos, animated GIFs
- Highly personalized
Check out the weekly #AdobeChat every Wednesday at (4 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT).
URGENT: Next week’s #AdobeChat is all about Email Marketing. Just add it to the calendar. Please CC your boss. pic.twitter.com/vgO38r3l9w
— Marketing Cloud (@AdobeMktgCloud) August 3, 2016
