Content marketing spend increasing, social media #1 product

Junta42 recently released their 2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey.  The report looks at how marketing professionals are using content marketing to fuel their efforts. If you’ve never heard the term “content marketing” it is defined as:

“The creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.” – Wikipedia

The report highlights a number of compelling takeaways:
- 6 in 10 marketing professionals plan to increase content marketing spending in 2010
- Small companies are spending more than 2x the amount on content marketing as compared with larger companies
- Content marketing is now 33% of the total marketing budget

While large and small companies alike have seen the benefits of content marketing, it is clear that small companies stand to gain the most. Part of the reason stems from the fact that content marketing is not only more engaging but it is also more cost effective to produce.  So when you see that small companies (<100 employees) are spending 40% of their total marketing budget on content marketing, keep in mind that what they get out of this investment may in fact be larger than where they are spending the other 60% of their budget.

There are over 15 major categories of content products ranging from social media to newsletters to podcasts. Not surprisingly Social Media was the number one ranked product to use as part of your total marketing strategy. While the report didn’t focus on overlap it is also important to realize that successful marketers are combining many of these content types to get the most bang for the buck.

You can see the full report here: 2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey