Is content marketing failing to drive sales?
Qualitative research amongst UK and US senior marketers finds that the industry is still struggling to integrate content marketing and sales strategies.
Research amongst UK and US senior marketers has found that the industry is still struggling to integrate content marketing and sales strategies.
The study by idio, which asked marketers to reveal their biggest digital marketing pain point, demonstrated a clear message from the sector that although content marketing is is a widely recognised and respected approach, the connection to sales and ultimately the bottom line is still not being established in many businesses.
Abandoned content
One explanation as to why content and sales are failing connect the dots is that the content being produced still isn’t hitting the mark, said idio. At a summit last year by SiriusDecisions, it was revealed that 60% to 70% of content produced by b-to-b marketing organisations goes unused, sitting on sales portals and website shelves. “This statistic was eye-opening to many marketing leaders who realised that they put a lot of time and effort into content creation, delivery and curation without obtaining clear content usage measurements or an understanding sof whether the content is valued by its audiences.”
Measuring success
Rob LaGesse, VP of Social Strategy at Rackspace, took part in the idio study: “The truth is that I just don’t know how to measure what we do (in content marketing). I can pay some vendors and get the numbers I ask for, numbers they think please me so I keep buying from them. Numbers that the bosses might like. But it is hard to really get numbers that are trustworthy and actionable – and that concerns me.”
Clearer ROI
Andrew Davies, CMO and co-founder at idio, believes that in order to see the right results from a content marketing strategy, businesses need to have clearer ROI metrics in place from the very beginning.
“Many businesses are jumping on the content marketing bandwagon without truly considering how it supports their core business results. If early results are weak, the business case is further undermined, meaning that marketers often don’t get the time to reap the benefits of a test-and-learn approach. We see the biggest success when there is a top-down commitment to content – when it is seen as a fundamental shift in how the business engages, informs and serves customers. It’s not about instantly proving ROI – as returns by their nature always lag behind investment. It’s about knowing what you want to achieve, getting buy-in across the business, and winning time to build a culture of content that moves the metrics towards those goals.”
Supporting this study is some recent data from the Content Marketing Institute which stated that 72% of UK marketers still believe they are not successfully tracking the ROI of their content marketing investment. Another of their studies also showed that 42% of sales reps feel that they don’t have the right information on a lead before making a call, demonstrating a strong need to better link the insight and intelligence from content marketing to CRM systems.
