New Study Reveals Significant Australian Spend on Content Marketing

SYDNEY, November 20, 2014 - Producing and distributing engaging content, and measuring the effectiveness of that content, are the top challenges faced by Australian marketers, according to a new study from the Content Marketing Institute conducted in partnership with The Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) and sponsored by Brightcove (NASDAQ: BCOV).

The study outlined that more than half of Australian marketers employ content marketing strategies and place a high importance on being able to create more engaging, visual content and optimising content for their target audience.

The study also showed that 46% of marketers believe that ROI measurement was an immediate and important criteria to address, identifying a wide variety of parameters they believe are essential for ROI measurement. Australian marketers measure the effectiveness of a content marketing program through changes in website traffic (60%), higher conversion rates (46%), changes in their sales efforts (46%), shifts in SEO ranking (39%) and assessing the time their customers spent on site (38%). Only around 30% of Australian marketers use quality sales leads and changes in subscriber growth as a measure of ROI, according to the study, while just 20% of marketers rated their organisation as successful at tracking ROI. A large group of marketers (22%) said they were not successful in measuring ROI or do not track ROI at all.

"What is interesting is that 83% of Australian marketers have a content marketing strategy but only 37% have their strategy documented," said Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and author of Epic Content Marketing. "Of the marketers who have a strategy, 40% say it guides their efforts very closely, whereas 56% say it guides efforts somewhat. These factors are critical for marketers. Marketers who document their strategy and follow it closely are more effective than those who do not."

The study also showed that Australian marketers, on average, used a combination of 12 content marketing tactics to drive their marketing program, including video, blogs, social media (other than blogs), articles on the web, in-person events, and case studies. Video was ranked in the top 10 list of tactics, used by 72% of Australian marketers.

"Australian marketers are clearly keen on content marketing and video is playing a massive role in their pursuit of creating more engaging content," said Mark Blair, Vice President of Australia and New Zealand at Brightcove. "The study also showed that 63% of marketers believe spend on content marketing will increase over the next 12 months. This is good for Brightcove as our expertise in video will help Australian marketers push their content marketing to greater heights."

Other findings about Australian marketers from the report include:

• 50% believe producing engaging content is one of the biggest challenges they face. This is followed by lack of budget (48%), producing content consistently (46%) and measuring content effectiveness (44%)
• 91% want to understand better what content is effective between now and the next 12 months
• 67% plan to create more engaging content and gain a better understanding of their audience
• 55% plan to optimise content, get better at converting website visitors (60%) organise website content (65%), create visual content (61%) and measure content marketing ROI (46%). 67% want to immediately increase engagement levels of their content
• 16% spend at least half their budget on content marketing
• 63% believe their content marketing spend will increase or significantly increase over the next 12 months
• 46% want to work on content marketing ROI measurement immediately
• 86% want to work on creating more visual content in the near future

Content Marketing in Australia 2015: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends reports on the findings gathered from the third annual Australia report conducted by the Content Marketing Institute in partnership with the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) about content marketing. The research was sponsored by Brightcove. 251 respondents who are for-profit marketers - both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer
(B2C) - from Australian companies representing a full range of industries, functional areas and company sizes responded to the survey in July and August 2014.

Download the full report today.

About Content Marketing Institute (CMI)
Content Marketing Institute (CMI) is the leading global content marketing education and training organization. CMI teaches enterprise brands how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multi-channel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest content marketing-focused event, is held every September, and Content Marketing World Sydney, every March. CMI also produces the quarterly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. CMI is a 2012, 2013 and 2014 Inc. 500 company.

About the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA)
The Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) is the principal industry body for information-based marketing and advertising and is the largest marketing and advertising body in Australia with more than 600 member organisations.

About Brightcove
Brightcove Inc. (NASDAQ:BCOV) is a leading global provider of powerful cloud solutions for delivering and monetizing video across connected devices. The company offers a full suite of products and services that reduce the cost and complexity associated with publishing, distributing, measuring and monetizing video across devices. Brightcove has more than 5,500 customers in over 70 countries that rely on the company’s cloud solutions to successfully publish high-quality video experiences to audiences everywhere. To learn more, visit www.brightcove.com.

Media Contact
Damian Francis
+61 422 979 017
Click PR for Brightcove
brightcove@clickpr.com.au

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