Awash in tech options, content marketers are hacking their way to meaningful strategy

Content marketers are overwhelmed with new technology options but primarily still use brute force to find their way to deeper and more meaningful strategies. That’s the key finding in Content Marketing Institute’s newly released 2019 Content Management and Strategy Survey, sponsored by content intelligence platform Vennli.

“This year’s research suggests that while many organizations have a handle on the physical management of content assets with nearly 70 percent having undertaken content inventories and audits, there is a great need for optimizing the use of technology to make content flow more quickly and seamlessly throughout the enterprise—and to get that content in front of the right audiences at optimal times,” said Robert Rose, chief strategy advisor at Content Marketing Institute, in a news release.

Additional highlights of the study:

Businesses are taking strategic content more seriously

More than three-quarters (76 percent) of those surveyed say they take a strategic approach to content management. Further, 59 percent say they have a documented content management strategy.

There is still a lot of manual work involved

In terms of scalability of their content-related efforts, 78 percent report their organization has some systems in place, but there is a lot of manual work.

Many lack the right technology to manage content across the organization

Forty-two percent report their organization hasn’t acquired the right technology to manage content across the enterprise. Another 42 percent say they have the technology but aren’t using it to its potential.

Prioritizing audiences and knowing what is important to them are top challenges

Many respondents, when thinking about the audience(s) within their market, say they are challenged with prioritizing marketing effort toward one audience over another (71 percent) and knowing what is most important to the audience (61 percent).

In many organizations, communication between teams is an issue

Respondents anticipate their organization’s biggest strategic content management challenge in 2019 will be communication between teams (e.g., content, marketing, IT, creative, sales).

Access the full report here.

Now in its third year, this research provides a snapshot of how marketers are using technology to help create, manage, deliver, and scale enterprise content and marketing, as well as how their teams use it to more precisely target and engage audiences across the customer journey. The survey was conducted to support CMI’s ContentTECH Summit.