Marketers are creating more content, but they're not sure why

Usually research plays out like a disaster movie trailer, but a recent study by Accenture Interactive offers all the drama needed. Marketers are in the midst of a content tsunami. And it only got worse and worse.

“Content seems to be evolving faster than we perceive change,” said Donna Tuths, global head of content at Accenture Interactive, of the study. “For me, this is a sign that we are about to see an inflection point. There's a transformative moment that we're reaching very quickly. ”

According to data, 50 percent of marketers have more content than they can effectively manage, and 52 percent say their colleagues can beat them to execution. Add to that 80 percent of those leaders also predict their output will increase over the next two years, and you've set yourself up as a potential disaster in the manufacturing process.

Research, aptly titled" Content: Marketing country ,” make the case content marketing came like a tidal wave. Truths suggests that the report aims to test a hypothesis that Accenture has noticed — mainly that marketers have been blindly creating more content without trusting that the work is actually delivering results.

“Water has to be managed,” she said. “There is a finite amount of content that can be created, curated and distributed based on most of the media we have today.”

Process improvement

This disconnect begins at the top and trickles down the organizational ladder. Without support and guidance from executives, it would be difficult for ROI to track.

“There is no painless pill to take to get rid of this condition. It will do the job at multiple levels both within the organization and in the ecosystem of partners that all content marketers live in,” said Tuths. “The assignment will require funding from the C-suite. ”

But what exactly will this transformative and focused content approach look like? According to research, it all boils down to better planning.

Fifty-three percent of respondents said they spend more time on the operational details of content curation than on branding and strategy. And two years from now, 80 percent are expected to spend more time being active.

“The less you plan, the more you end up with a real and chaotic symphony,” says Tuths. “And it promotes waste.”

Waste seems to infiltrate the creative process in many ways. The study found that 78 percent of respondents struggled to implement their technology.

Tuths says she's currently spending time with clients fine-tuning their operating model, defining where content will be stored within the organization, how it will be archived and tagged, who will have access, and what other options are available. another process – strategic direction.

“You have to think [these tasks] like librarian services,” she said. "Thinking about the speed of marketing, it's going to be really fast if someone wants to go in there and get something pretty close to what they need and make small modifications."

One way to make According to Accenture, the process more efficient, is to reuse content. Marketers can take their work further by adapting it for different mediums — turning an article into a SlideShare, for example — or recycling it by breaking up e-books and longer white papers into multiple posts (what we call content is divisible ).

Just like water, it benefits everyone if marketers preserve their content as much as possible.

Resource improvement

While executive support is crucial for any content program to be successful, so are the tools and talents that make the show so powerful.

The study asked marketers to rate how 13 different factors can affect an organization's ability to stay on track. Better technology tops the list, but the results are very balanced, as you can see in the image below.

“This really shows us that there is no silver bullet here, and they know that there is no silver bullet,” Tuths said. “All of this will be required.”

Technology, strategy, timing, and organizational support are all valued, but on many occasions, marketers have voiced their concerns about one resource: talent. About a third of respondents confirmed that they were not prepared to produce more content because they lacked the right talent.

“There is a very tight market for talent,” explains Tuths. “The skills needed are evolving rapidly. To attract the best talent in this space, you need to be seen as serious about content and content marketing. ”

Based on these findings, the Accenture Interactive survey identified a key issue affecting today's marketing landscape: The fundamental approach to how people create content is sorely flawed. Quantity is not all that matters if the quality of what you publish is affected.

If marketers want to survive such a tidal wave, they'll have to get smarter about planning — and sticking to — their content strategy.