The “rules of engagement” have changed, and marketers are struggling to adapt to an evolving content landscape. Creating one-size-fits-all content and distributing it across channels is no longer a viable strategy for driving personalization, meaningful customer connections, and, as we’ve discovered, it also doesn’t drive the metrics that marketers direly need.
We recently surveyed over 500 marketers to understand how they’re approaching content personalization and where they’re struggling with content measurement as the digital marketing and content technology ecosystem continues to evolve.
Personalization of content at the point of creation is playing a significant role in engaging audiences, but effectively executing content strategies can be costly and difficult to measure. Marketers have traditionally relied on automated distribution technologies as a proxy for personalization, but they’re still struggling to measure audience engagement beyond the initial point of consumption.
“Measuring Content Performance,” the second survey report in our “Future of Content” series, shows marketers have a tremendous content measurement problem rooted in the wrong distribution technology.
The need for deeper data
The biggest challenge for proving content ROI is linking content performance with business goals. Although marketers understand the importance of creating personalized experiences, their current technology investments cannot adequately create and measure successful content performance across multiple audiences and distribution channels. Below are some of the marketers’ biggest concerns when investing in content:
Proving content ROI is the key to investment
Engaging an audience with personalized content takes significant resources and investment. And investment requires a business case based on meaningful data. Marketers and creatives are currently spending most of their marketing budget on automated distribution technologies. But content that itself is more personalized in nature versus customized at the point of distribution will offer marketers the deep layer of metrics that they so desperately need.
The growing demand for content personalization
Marketers recognize the need for personalized content that connects with audiences in a tailored way, yet they still turn to distribution technology and “push” marketing to do the heavy lifting of personalization. Although the content is personalized for the distribution channel, that doesn’t mean it is unique to the audience consuming it.
Content technology and the interactive advantage
Insight from a recent Forbes and PwC survey begs the question that if companies experience substantially higher conversion rates from personalized content, why are so many marketers struggling to get a handle on successful content marketing and thoughtful personalization? When marketers shift their focus to creating more personalized content through innovative content creation technologies, they see a ripple effect that starts with more engaged audiences, leads to more optimized content, and ends with the ability to clearly demonstrate ROI.
Download “The Future of Content: Measuring Content Performance” to discover why deeper data and better insights are the keys to measuring the return on content investment.
