Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) get almost 24 calls a month from marketing providers looking to sell them advertising or marketing products and services. Competition is fierce, and SMBs often have a difficult time choosing a provider.

Last month, I covered how the trend of fake online content leads to a general distrust of digital and online media. But the local digital marketing industry, especially in the area of SEO, suffers from its own share of issues that lead to a lack of trust by SMBs.

LSA (Local Search Association) conducted a survey to examine what challenges SMBs face when shopping for a digital marketing provider and what areas they feel are most important for marketers to address when trying to gain their business.

Below I discuss the results of the survey, data regarding client churn in the industry and ways in which marketers need to respond....

I only really started caring about marketing (and the intersection of advertising, technology, and media) a couple years ago when I started at Contently as an intern. It’s been a never-ending crash course ever since.

Digital marketing changes rapidly, and it’s only getting more complex. As soon as you think you understand the space, you realize a minute later that you’re not even close.

This year in particular, with its many shocking pieces of news and trends, has upended many assumptions I’ve held about marketing.

Here are four of the most important trends that have changed the way I think about my job....

Our industry faces a well-known duopoly, with Facebook and Google commanding an ever-increasing share of digital ad spend, both in the U.S. and globally. I recently dug into the data and forecasts available, to better quantify (for my own benefit and hopefully yours!) just how much Facebook and Google are eating digital.

Global ad spend, across all channels (digital, TV, print, radio, outdoor, etc.) is growing annually on average by 5.6 percent from 2015 to 2020, and will reach $674 Billion from $513 Billion in 2015.

The U.S. market will represent 35 percent of the global ad market, reaching $234 Billion by 2020 with a slightly slower growth rate compared to the global average, at 5.0 percent from 2015 to 2020. This is expected as rapidly developing markets in the East and a growing middle class represent new markets on which advertisers can focus.

45% Of U.S. Ad Spend Will Be Digital
33 percent of ad spend in the U.S. was digital last year and that is expected to reach 45 percent by 2020. In real numbers, that’s a $60-billion market growing to $105-billion, with a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.9 percent.

The growth of digital is more than 2 times higher than the growth of the overall ad market, which represents a tremendous opportunity for digital businesses. More people are accessing content online and more advertisers are spending their budgets online. Will the rising tide lift all ships?...

Okay, so there’s nothing at all original about a “marketing stats” blog.I know.

But, I do follow the digital industry closely and sometimes come across some pretty interesting stats.And seeing that businesses are gearing up for Q4, the holiday season, and 2016 planning, I figured I’d put together a few stats that might make you think about your marketing plans. So without further ado….

Consumers’ top purchase influencers are also their top sources of new product awareness, according to results from a recent Nielsen report [download page].

The study, based on a survey of 30,000 consumers across 60 countries, found that friends and family (56%) and TV ads (52%) are the leading sources of information about new products for consumers. These are also consumers’ top purchase influencers, according to studies by MarketingCharts and by Deloitte....

As CMI research shows, marketers with a documented content marketing strategy are more effective than those who don’t have a written strategy. Yet, only 27% of B2C and 48% of B2B marketers have developed a plan.

If you lack a written strategy, a one-page plan is a great place to begin. If you have a detailed strategy but struggle to gain traction, boiling it down to one page will make it easier. A one-page strategy can help you:

-  Crystalize your content marketing strategy
-  Gain stronger buy-in more quickly from executives or clients
-  Keep content producers strategically aligned...

In summary, here are the key takeaways from the infographic below that tells us the latest shifts in digital advertising this 2017:

• Increased usage of mobile ad blockers
• Increased monetization of Google AMP and Facebook
• Instant Articles
• Revenue on desktop advertising will continue to level down; Mobile advertising will experience massive growth
• Google and Facebook continues to be the most utilized platform in digital advertising
• Programmatic advertising will gain more popularity
• Outstream videos will gain more popularity
• Increased utilization of Chatbots....

Are you ready to give content marketing the time, money and resources it deserves?

While your answer may be yes, it’s never easy to get up and running with a new marketing strategy. There are questions to answer, challenges to overcome and various tasks that need addressed.

With 88% of B2B marketers currently using content marketing as part of their overall strategy, neglecting to do so will put you in the minority.

As you get started, you’ll soon find a variety of ways to better research, plan, create and distribute content.

What I’ve created here is a list of content marketing tools that you’ll want by your side as you roll out your first campaign.

These tools cover the most important details you’ll need to address before you get started, as well as in the early days (and weeks) of running your campaign....

Short consumer attention spans.

For modern digital marketers, it’s one of the biggest struggles to optimizing consumer engagement despite having more channels than ever before.  In fact, the average consumer attention span has decreased over the last decade to just 8 seconds (!), but I’m sure we all know people will shorter attention spans too!...

Everybody knows the under-35 crowd are less avid consumers of traditional media than their parents.

Yet a new forecast from Deloitte predicts that North America’s 83 million 18- to 34-year-old millennials will drop substantial sums on media consumption this year: roughly $62 billion. That’s an average spend of $750 per person in the U.S. and Canada.

Pay TV is a surprisingly large part of the equation, accounting for almost half of that spending.

Deloitte estimates that 70 percent of millennials live away from their parents’ homes — and eight out of 10 will pay a monthly fee for television in 2015. So much for all the discussions about “cord nevers,” a group who opt never to pay for a cable or satellite TV subscription. According to the firm’s projections, four-fifths of millennials will spend an average of $80 a month on pay TV packages....

When digital marketers roll up their sleeves and generate leads, many have found that white papers provide a utility for which potential customers are willing to give up a name and email address. White papers are more substantial pieces of content that allow customers to solve an information problem that represents the solutions your company can offer.

Do marketers still use white papers?

A 2014 study conducted by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs showed that 64% of marketers use white papers. Among those are marketers tasked with conveying more in-depth, complicated information to potential buyers. Those marketers recognize the impact that white papers can have on a consumer’s buying decision. When used effectively, white papers can serve as and anchor to a longer content marketing campaign. Here’s how...