Content marketers in companies wish they had more courage
A survey by Content Marketing Forum CMF and Questiq on the content marketing organization in companies shows how far content marketers have come - and what is holding them back.
Where do German companies stand with their content marketing organization? What moves them forward and what stands in their way? These are the core questions of a qualitative survey that the consulting firm Questiq, the Content Marketing Forum and content marketing expert Jutta Gawenda jointly launched in the summer of 2020 with the support of the Marketing Club Frankfurt. The results suggest: Content marketing in its complexity and interdisciplinarity can have many organizational forms, tools and approaches. But it will only succeed if the attitude of the people behind it is right.
Setting is central
"Our primary concern with this research was to understand what the big challenges are for content marketers in companies and to find best practices on how to master them," explains Ioana Sträter, CEO of Questiq. The answers to questions about the ideal organization, the most important current topics in content marketing, as well as tools and technologies, surprised the initiators in their diversity: "The approaches and procedures of the companies are in part completely different, and yet most of the respondents come to good results," says Jutta Gawenda. "One thing has become very clear: More than anything else, the attitude of the people working with us is crucial to how well content marketing works," adds Regina Karnapp, Managing Director of the Content Marketing Forum.
Not an ideal model
Agility, openness, and collaboration are accordingly the most important keywords that the three-person team gained from the qualitative, non-representative survey. In group interviews and an online survey with almost 40 participants from large - mainly international - companies and agencies, an ideal image of a content marketing organization emerged, which above all must fit the company and its employees.
There is no one ideal model; rather, there are very different paths that can lead to an ideal image, which in turn is shared by almost all respondents: A flexible, agile model of collaboration based on a strategy that is known and recognized by all and geared to the common goal of customer-centric communication - beyond internal company politics, with individual professional responsibilities and a good dose of courage to make decisions.
How the companies surveyed and the agencies work with their customers to achieve the ideal image, what tools and technologies they use, what they map internally and for what help is brought in from outside, can be seen in the Content Marketing Best Practices - Experiences and Trends" Report can be read in more detail.
