From emarketer. October 8, 2012.

Content  marketing  serves  a  variety  of  purposes,  from  building  brand awareness  to  engendering  loyalty  and  helping  push  potential customers  down  the  purchase  funnel.  And  August  research  from content  marketing  platform  Outbrain  (http://www.outbrain.com)  and Econsultancy  (http://econsultancy.com)  indicates  that  a  solid  minority of  marketers,  along  with  13%  of  agencies,  worldwide  are  already defining  content  marketing  strategies.

Even  more  plan  to  do  so  in  the  future.  Among  in-­house  marketers, 55%  said  they  were  planning  a  content  marketing  strategy,  as  did 58%  of  agencies.  That  left  just  8%  of  marketers  and  29%  of  agencies without  any  content  marketing  strategy  plans  in  the  coming  years.

The  most  effective  type  of  content  marketing  is  email  newsletters, cited  by  half  of  in-­house  marketer  respondents.  Social  media  posts followed  close  behind.

 

In-­house  marketers  were  most  likely  to  plan  to  increase  their  use  of Twitter  and  Facebook,  at  90%  and  81%,  respectively,  to  distribute content,  making  the  social  platforms  the  most  popular  channels  for sharing  and  promotion.  And  more  than  six  in  10  marketers  said  they already  used  those  channels.

Though  budgets  still  remain  fairly  small,  content  marketing  appears  to be  here  to  stay:  an  overwhelming  number  of  brand  marketers  agreed that  it  was  “key  to  creating  an  emotional  connection  with  customers,” and  three-­quarters  believed  that  brands  are  simply  now  becoming publishers.

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