What's the Affect of the Rapid Growth of Digital Content on Marketeers?

​After 18 months at Argyll Scott, what has struck me is the importance of creating engaging and high quality content to all my clients, regardless of size, industry, B2C, B2B or other stakeholder audiences. In the era of big data and personalisation in conjunction with the explosion of social and mobile channels, brands are now expected to provide value to their customers and stakeholders by creating content that is genuinely useful and/or entertaining. A recent study confirmed the growing demand for content marketing skills. “The Inbound Marketing Economy” analysed more than 75,000 job listings on Indeed.com which contained digital marketing keywords, including content marketing terms. The number of content marketing job listings has grown nearly 350% since 2011 (US study). Digital is rewriting the rules. But, if we go back to basics, what is a content manager actually responsible for? Content is becoming a marketeer’s most vital resource: it sustains the marketing activities that connect businesses with customers and drive business outcomes. A content manager is, typically, responsible for developing the voice of a company through its online presence and for building an audience. This job involves researching, sourcing, writing and creating interesting content to be published to reach and engage target audiences. Content will help businesses improving efficiency, re-boosting online branding, optimising search engine rankings and making information search easier. But businesses need to be careful of what type of content they create… Another study I read recently confirmed that the size of the digital universe is doubling every two years and by 2020, the digital universe will reach a staggering 44 trillion gigabytes. One of the challenge of this dramatic growth for any business is to determine what is the right amount of content for them and what type of messages they should deliver to their audience. Whilst most business leaders have come to realise the need to add content marketing to their marketing mix, many still don’t know how to develop effective content strategies. As a result, they are struggling to harness the power of content marketing to connect meaningfully or profitably with their consumer and corporate customers. To be efficient and to drive successful outcomes, businesses need to develop their own appropriate content strategy. To that end, they need to make sure that they hire skilled and knowledgeable talent, invest in the rights tools and coordinate across departments to drive long-term results. If you’re a business owner in need of more specific advice about what to look for in a Content Manager or a Marketing professional who is interesting in knowing what the market is like at the moment, please don’t hesitate to contact me in confidence at sbaret@argyllscott.com or on 020 7936 1120.