Content marketing continues to increase in importance for marketing professionals, with 90 percent of survey respondents reporting they believe it will become even more important within the next year. This is according to research available on the eConsultancy Blog,  in conjunction with Outbrain.

Participants were asked to note the three most important business objectives for their content marketing activity and increased engagement (52 percent) had the highest response rate, followed by increasing traffic to sites (42 percent), raising brand awareness (35 percent), increasing sales (33 percent), and improving SEO (31 percent).  While 38 percent of in-house marketers and 13 percent of agencies currently have a defined content marketing strategy in place, 58 percent of agencies and 55 percent of in-house marketers are in the process of defining a clear content marketing strategy. Further, 64 percent of in-house marketers see content marketing “becoming its own discipline.”

From the blog post, Kevin Gibbons, Managing Director and Founder, Quaturo, says, “I find these results very interesting. The fact that SEO is only fifth on this list is great to see—you shouldn’t be doing content marketing with SEO as the primary goal, as links/organic traffic should be a by-product of great content. So it’s refreshing to see that engagement, brand awareness, and sales generation are valued more highly here.”

As the survey findings indicate, the majority of marketers will be incorporating a defined content strategy within the next year. There are many benefits to a well-executed content strategy, including increased brand engagement and awareness, as well as improved sales and SEO.

©iStockphoto.com/Stephan John

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