The following article was written by Gretel Going , a partner at Channel V Media , a marketing agency in New York City.
Need fuel to get the green light on a social media or content marketing project you've been pitching? Or maybe you're looking for backup in your plea to increase your customer retention budget.
A new marketing survey conducted by King Fish Media , in partnership with HubSpot, Junta42 and Upshot Institute , might be exactly what you're looking for. (You can skip the overview and download the complete study here .)
The 2009 Survey on Marketing, Media and Measurement offers hard data that confirms our collective hunch that companies are focusing on communicating directly with existing and prospective consumers with methods made ubiquitous by the social media and content craze.
At the same time, it shows that traditional advertising is alive and well, but that its usefulness is limited to certain initiatives. And if you're wondering how to gauge "usefulness" in the first place, well, the study's got an entire section on metrics and how they're being used by marketers to make important budgeting decisions.
As recently as a year ago, companies were diving into social media and content not always because they wanted to or believed it was effective, but because they thought they were supposed to.
According to this study, however, nearly two-thirds of marketers -- in-house and agency -- believe that content from a brand or company is perceived as having the same or more value than content from a media brand. Also, they're moving dollars toward direct-touch platforms such as company Web sites and social media.
But traditional advertising does still have a part in the overall marketing mix; the difference now is that it, just like any other marketing platform, has been assigned a specific purpose(s). For instance, advertising is seen primarily as a tool for reaching prospects, but is used far less to talk to customers.
Custom content and media are used by over 70% of marketers to communicate with current customers, and 70% use custom media to attract prospects. Social media is used heavily for both.
Among the key findings of the 2009 Survey on Marketing, Media and Measurement:
- 44% of respondents are increasing their customer retention budget over the next 12 months.
- 50% of people can't get funding for a marketing project if it doesn't have metrics built into it.
- 86% of respondents' companies are currently creating or plan to create original content for their customers and prospects in the coming year.
- 81% believe that brands and companies can create content that is as engaging and informative as content created by media companies.
- 74% feel that original content and media are most effective for generating marketing ROI.
- 70% are spending more today to reach customers and prospects directly with branded content than they did three years ago.
About the survey: The survey was created by King Fish Media and hosted online from June 15, 2009 to August 25, 2009. King Fish Media and its three co-sponsors -- Hubspot, Junta42 and the Upshot Institute -- attracted participants through a number of different media, including newsletters, blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and personal email invitations.
The survey was completed by 230 respondents primarily split between corporate management and marketing/sales management.
To download the complete study, please visit the King Fish Media site .
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Jackie Eade 9:40 AM on October 13, 2009
Like this - will tweet.
Ed Bisquera 1:23 PM on October 13, 2009
I believe that those companies in local vertical niches, that create and deploy a content marketing plan, will be farther ahead of their competition, that doesn't embrace content marketing.
I see the explosion of local businesses taking large marketing initiatives released by national companies and scaling it down to work in the hyperlocal niche areas.
It's interesting to see social media still as a new field, but I'm confident that companies will be leading the way locally via content marketing.
I'm excited to see what happens in the coming 18 months for many of my students and clients.
Thanks for sharing the survey; I'm already sharing this with my contacts and friends.
Ed Bisquera, Vancouver, Washington
Social Media Instructor & Consultant for Workshops
Follow me on Twitter @edbisquera
Nick Shin 2:34 PM on October 13, 2009
Very comprehensive, insightful, and useful to know. Out of the millions of "studies" done this year, this might be the most reliable. Tweeted (@shinng).
Graham Jones - Internet Psychologist 5:25 PM on October 14, 2009
As interesting as this study is, there is nothing that new in its findings. What it really shows is the fact that targeted, focused information combined with direct customer contact is the way to go. Take a look at those figures again: even in the age of social networking, face-to-face is up there in the top 5, beating advertising. Ever since business was invented, the successful ones have been those that focus and meet people. We might think we can do without that face-to-face contact thanks to the Internet. But what this study shows is that we should not neglect it.
Phibee Owings 12:24 AM on October 15, 2009
Great survey but there's more to find out. Not every online survey product handles multiple styles of questions. Zoomerang does. And it's free. Try this: http://snurl.com/zoomtypes
Julie King 1:28 PM on October 16, 2009
The survey results are interesting, but the selection process used is highly distorted, which isn't a surprise given that social media was used heavily to solicit participants.
I find it interesting that only 9% of respondents were pure B2C and 44% are in publishing / media / advertising / marketing. There also seems to be a skew towards larger companies - 15% of respondents are from firms with 500+ companies, whereas in Canada anyway, 97-97% of all businesses are classified as small businesses and 75% have less than 10 employees. I would guess that the numbers are similar in the US.
It would be interesting to see the same survey repeated across a representative sample of businesses.
Benny Forsberg, CMO Squace 2:34 PM on November 12, 2009
I think this is spot on!
Everything is going from ”Broadcast” towards ”Youcast”.
And when talking about ”Youcast” I think there is one import marketing channel missing out is this report - the mobile marketing channel!
People are now walking around with a web ready gizmos in their pocket that not only knows where they are but also plugs into the Internet to share that info, merge it with online databases, and find out what – and who – is in the immediate vicinity…
Simply put, content can now be deliverd in a relevent personal one-to-one way anytime anywhere. So the power of content is also the power of local. The location changes everything.
This one input – our coordinates – has the potential to change all the outputs. Where we shop, who we talk to, what we read, what we search for, where we go – they all change once we merge location and the Web.
And it´s happening on the mobile arena right now!
Improvements in social networking and mobile computing platforms (led by Facebook + Apple ecosystems) are fundamentally changing ways people communicate with each other and ways developers / advertisers / vendors reach consumers.
Mobile devices will evolve as remote controls for ever expanding types of real-time cloud-based services, including emerging category of location-based services, creating opportunities + dislocations, empowering consumers in unprecedented + transformative ways.
The era with glammy, fancy, blinging and buzzing stuff in print ads, on the TV and the web is over. Content will prevail and Mobile Internet will be bigger than most think.