Content marketing has been getting more attention of late, and new survey results [download page] from Econsultancy confirm that this area is top of mind for digital marketers this year. When asked which 3 digital-related areas are the leading priorities for their organization in 2013, 39% of in-house digital marketers surveyed tabbed content marketing, up from 29% last year. Tied with content marketing at the top of the list was conversion rate optimization (up from 34% last year), slightly ahead of last year’s leader, social media engagement (38%).
Targeting and personalization, a new option in this year’s survey, also is a focus for digital marketers, with 37% citing it as top-3 priority. Some areas taking a step back from last year include content optimization (31%, down from 39%), brand building/viral marketing (26%, from 32%), video marketing (9%, from 21%), and social media analytics (9%, from 19%). Connected TV, also a new option this year, failed to garner a vote.
Econsultancy’s “Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: Digital Trends for 2013” – produced in association with Adobe – also asked supply-siders for their views. Agency respondents agreed that content marketing would be at the forefront (38% this year, up from 21% last year), but were more bullish on the prospects for mobile optimization, also putting this area in the equal top ranking. Agencies appear less interested this year in a number of areas, such as joining up online and offline data, brand building and viral marketing, and content optimization. Standing out, though, is social media engagement, last year’s clear top priority at 54% of respondents. This year, just 37% tabbed it a top-3 priority, moving it down to the third spot.
About the Data: The 8th Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing is based on an online survey of more than 700 client-side (53%) and agency (47%) respondents, carried out in October 2012. 60% are based in the UK, while 46% are B2C-focused, 32% B2B-focused, and the remainder equally focused on both.
