Companies are excited about content marketing and are not looking to tighten their belts in this area. They do not want to lose the momentum gained adjusting to new realities over the past year. As a result, we find that the Covid-19 crisis has accelerated content marketing spending, a trend that will likely stick even after the pandemic subsides. A third of companies spend at least half of their marketing budget on content marketing and this share is growing. Nearly 40 percent say they are devoting more to content marketing than before the pandemic, while over 60 percent say they expect to devote a bigger share of their budget to content marketing in the future. A significant proportion—68 percent—of large companies (250+ employees) plan to increase spending. Only one percent of respondents say they would reduce content marketing spending going forward.

Companies are excited about content marketing and are not looking to tighten their belts in this area. They do not want to lose the momentum gained adjusting to new realities over the past year. As a result, we find that the Covid-19 crisis has accelerated content marketing spending, a trend that will likely stick even after the pandemic subsides. A third of companies spend at least half of their marketing budget on content marketing and this share is growing. Nearly 40 percent say they are devoting more to content marketing than before the pandemic, while over 60 percent say they expect to devote a bigger share of their budget to content marketing in the future. A significant proportion—68 percent—of large companies (250+ employees) plan to increase spending. Only one percent of respondents say they would reduce content marketing spending going forward.

As remote and hybrid work have become the norm, companies are experimenting with new content formats to improve brand awareness and enhance reach. They are embracing activities that live online. Visuality and remote presence are thus becoming increasingly important. Nearly 70 percent of companies in the survey say webinars and other online events have become more important during the coronavirus crisis. The rise of webinars is not surprising though, given that they are location independent while facilitating real-time interaction. Webinars are also a tool companies can employ to build engagement and relationships – both internally and externally. Video formats were unanimously ranked the number one medium (55 percent) that companies say will be “very important in the future” followed by webinars and other online events (47 percent), as well as traditional text articles (36 percent). Audio formats are also growing in popularity. Companies are experimenting with corporate podcasts and actively adding audio to their content format mix. Sixteen percent of those surveyed say podcasts or other audio-only content will become more significant in the future.

That said, the survey notes a distinct difference in attitude (regarding content formats) between companies that produce content inhouse and companies that work with external partners. So, although webinars are a growing trend, inhouse content creators do not attribute as much importance to them as companies working with external partners. For example, just 40 percent of firms using inhouse content creators believe that webinars and online events will be “very important in the future,” compared to nearly 60 percent of those producing up to half of their content with an external partner. The same trend can be seen regarding perspectives on audio formats. Companies relying on inhouse content creation teams perceive audio-based content, such as podcasts, as being less consequential in the future, compared to firms working with external partners. Fifteen percent of companies creating inhouse content spontaneously say podcasts would “be very important in the near future,” compared to 22 percent of firms relying on an external partner for more than half of their content. This difference in attitude and content format preference is related to the fact that companies are struggling to find the right people, either inhouse or externally, to execute projects in line with top-level goals and to experiment with formats for different channels. A quarter of respondents say that a lack of dedicated staff is their biggest content marketing challenge. In addition, three-quarters list concerns related to knowing how to create and target relevant content. These challenges range from knowing how to reach intended audiences, to choosing the appropriate channels and measuring impact to finding the right external partner.

We asked decision makers if they had a defined strategy for content marketing and social media distribution. Sixty percent say they have a clearly defined content marketing strategy and roughly three-out-of-four have a social media distribution strategy. Interestingly, the data suggest that decision makers in companies at the smaller end of the scale (50-99 employees) are more likely to have defined strategies. This is in stark comparison to the responses from decision makers in bigger companies (more than 1000 employees). For example, around half of the companies with 50-99 employees have defined strategies, compared to less than 5 percent of organisations with more than 1,000 employees.

The two-out-of-five respondents who say they lack a clearly defined content market strategy attribute the situation to an absence of time and dedicated resources. Some also say they feel they lack the expertise to develop a clearly defined content marketing strategy. Companies also note that the nature of their organisational structure sometimes prevents the development of a clear strategy. One reason quoted by some companies for the lack of a social media distribution strategy is that they don’t see the benefit of having one. This is worrying because companies without a defined social media strategy are likely to have a fragmented approach to their online activities, which in turn makes it harder for them to build an audience.

The results indicate that one-in-four lack a strategy for developing audience interaction and engagement. Without a strategy, posting on social media platforms does not amount to much more than shooting blindly at a target and hoping to hit the bullseye. Achieving results on social media is difficult without defined goals or an understanding of the target audience. Findings also suggest that there is room for improvement when it comes to making a real and measurable impact. Only 30 percent say they have a defined impact strategy, which entails an intentional and clearly defined plan for influencing change in selected areas important to stakeholders. This means that seven-out-of-ten companies are not communicating with key audiences about issues that matter to them. There is a lot more be to desired in this emerging area of strategy work, more so as audiences increasingly say they want to see the firms they do business with declare a position on important social issues.