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The success factors for content marketing in 2019

Author's avatar By Dave Chaffey 06 Dec, 2018
Essential Essential topic

New research highlights activities from the top performers

Joe Pullizzi and team over at the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) have been doing a great job in tracking trends in content marketing over the years. I still think of content marketing as a relatively new label for a marketing technique that has existed as long as print (see this video history of how content marketing has evolved from 1895). Yet it’s now ten years since I first read ‘Get Content, Get Customers’ by Joe, which was the first call-to-action to modern content marketing that started the latest trend.

Content marketing management trends for 2019

The latest trends and success factors for the year ahead are highlighted in this research, which focuses on B2B marketer responses, but highlights content marketing strategy success factors relevant for many other organisations. These are highlighted by categorisation of respondents by ‘top performers’ who characterizes his or her organization’s overall content marketing approach as extremely or very successful:

This chart forms a useful checklist to benchmark your content market strategy (alternatively, see our free visual digital marketing benchmarking template which features a Content Marketing review). Some of the key factors that separate leaders from ‘also rans’ are:

  • Having a defined content marketing strategy
  • Ability to measure content marketing ROI
  • Using personas to inform content marketing
  • Buy-in to content marketing from senior leaders in the organization
  • Prioritizes organizations informational needs over sales/promotional messages

I have also distilled these ‘success factors’ from this related chart:

How do your content marketing activities compare?

Research source

Author's avatar

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.

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Digital marketing trends 2019

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