Closing the content marketing gap between the US and UK
NewsCred’s head of international, Kayvan Salmanpour, takes a look at how content marketing is evolving on both sides of the pond, and what changes we are likely to see over the next year…
Travelling between our New York and London offices means that I get to experience the best of both worlds, and see developments both sides of the Atlantic.
If you looked back a year ago, you would have seen a substantial gap between the US and UK in the popularity and proficiency of content marketing, with the US admittedly being somewhat ahead. Fast forward to today, and that gap is closing substantially.
According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, UK Marketers are investing more in content marketing than their international peers, with 64% planning to increase their content marketing spend over the next 12 months*.
Rather than focusing on the differences between the two markets, or pit one against another, the focus should be on why changes are happening, what audiences and brands in both countries want, and what changes we are likely to see in both areas in the next year.
The strategies are the same; it’s the audiences that differ
It’s often thought that the UK and Europe are ‘behind’ the US when it comes to content marketing strategies, but right now, this couldn’t be more wrong. For example, big brands like Red Bull are producing international content strategies that come out of Austria before they are pushed out into the US.
What differs is the audience appetite for content – US audiences are consuming content like never before, whereas the UK audiences are more selective about what they do – and don’t – click on.
Curiosity and creativity are both location-agnostic, so as the UK consumer appetite increases, don’t be surprised by the increase in the scale and style of content marketing strategies that we’ll see implemented by brands in the UK.
The edgier and more original, the better
US brands have the advantage of being able to access a much larger audience base and want to take advantage of licensed content where possible to distribute cost-efficient content at scale. With such a large appetite for content in this market, this is a necessity.
UK brands, on the other hand, prefer a lower volume of content, with a higher level of specialist curation to fit the brand voice* – 85% of UK marketers cite brand awareness as their top goal when it comes to content marketing. There is currently a sense of caution when it comes to using licensed content that you don’t see in the US.
That said, I have found that marketers in the UK are more likely to want to take time to grow their CMS, so will need to use a model of licensing the content from the original publisher to repurpose entirely on their own channels. The appeal of this is model is that it provides a seamless reading experience and doesn’t risk driving readers away from a brand site.
47% of UK marketers already outsource content creation* – we have found that they are wanting to take advantage of more ‘edgy’ publications that may cover niche topics, whereas US brands, who outsource content creation less frequently than the UK, want to stick to ‘traditional’ outlets such as The Economist and The Wall Street Journal.
Say hello to dedicated teams
Earlier this year, Sainsbury’s merged its content and digital teams together, primarily because social is now driving more traffic to its site than search is, and media spend is moving from traditional display ad units to content marketing. Marketing director Sarah Warby stated that ‘if brands are not acting like publishers, they are missing a massive trick’.
Across both regions, expect to see brands forming dedicated content marketing teams as 2014 progresses. Big brands on both sides struggle with a disjointed approach as to which department should look after content. The answer should be the creation of a brand new department, or, at the very least, a move to hire an editor or content manager.
A dedicated member of staff can be an evangelist of content across all departments – managing, creating and editing content. Brands who have created focused teams to promote content marketing across the company are the ones that are seeing real success from their content marketing strategies.
With almost half (48%*) of UK marketers ranking themselves as ‘very effective’ in using content marketing in their organisation in CMI research, we can see that confidence in the sector is growing – only 39%* would rank themselves at the same level last year.
Although there will always be differences between the way that the US and UK utilise content marketing, we’ll see the content boom become the norm.
Both markets are now heavily invested in content marketing, but neither can rest on their laurels. The US needs to continue to produce enough content to sate the appetite of the consumer and find ways to integrate across channels. Marketers in the UK, however, need to take a leaf out of Sainsbury’s book and look to act like publishers – producing and distributing the kind of targeted content that the audience will lap up at whatever scale necessary.
As the content gap between the UK and the US closes, you should expect to see as many examples of innovative content marketing campaigns from Europe as you do from Madison Avenue.
* Content Marketing in the United Kingdom 2014: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – Content Marketing Institute