Content Takes Top Spot in 2013 Marketing Priorities

You can scrap any New Years’ resolutions you made for your brand if they don’t include a heavy investment in content marketing.  

As reported yesterday on eMarketer.com, content marketing became truly top of mind for client side marketers in 2013 with 39% agreeing it's their most important digital priority. The original report from Econsultancy and Adobe reveals an increase of 10% from last year, with more and more marketers channeling resources and budgets into content development and distribution.  

But, what does this really mean for you and your brand? Well, over at our marketing partner-in-crime TMG’s Engage Blog, VP of Digital Strategy Andrew Hanelly is making the call to arms for brands that may be fighting this explosion in content marketing spend. Andrew’s central argument is that content not only has staying power and “lubricates your sales funnel” but also helps build long-term relationships with prospects by its very nature – content is conversational. I challenge you to find any holes in Andrew's logic in his post.

Back to the relevance for your brand, the question becomes whether or not you value the opportunity to open up a conversation with your audience of customers, prospects and brand fans? As my better-half often likes to remind me, a conversation is not waiting for your turn to talk and thinking about what you’re going to say – it’s listening to what someone is saying about themselves and making your response reflect that. 

To say it another way, advertising assumes it knows your audience without ever having met them before – content makes the commitment to take time and an interest in developing a rapport and relevancy. Now how’s that for a resolution?

As Senior Marketing Manager, Luke Meyers handles all aspects of marketing, branding and market research for McMurry and writes on topics related to content marketing, branded media and emerging technology.