There’s a good chance we will look back at 2014 as the year brands first seriously plunged into the content marketing waters. Terms like native content, brand publishing, and owned media are set to evolve from buzzwords into crucial staples of marketing success. Marketers are looking to invest in longform storytelling, both in print and online. And instead of relying on disruptive banner ads, brands are starting to get smart about targeting customers with original content.
But content marketing is still in its infancy, and marketers have a number of challenges to overcome. As we discovered earlier this year, measurement remains a hurdle; our content measurement survey from this summer found over 90 percent of marketers were not confident that their key content metrics were effective in measuring business results. For the year’s end, we wanted to broaden our scope and ask our audience of content marketers some important questions related to their triumphs, failures, and future goals: What types of content led to the most ROI? What resources were in short supply? What are some of the biggest challenges marketers face on a daily basis?
What follows is a crucial snapshot of the content marketing landscape as we get ready to transition into 2015.
