• by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, June 22, 2016

Content marketing platform NewsCred has published some interesting findings about how content informs purchase decisions and budgets for content marketing. In fact, there’s a disconnect between what marketers spend their time, budget, and resources creating -- and what they themselves actually want as consumers.

A live survey conducted at NewsCred’s recent #ThinkContentSummit found that, despite the fact that 97% of Fortune 1000 marketers spend more than an hour researching and consuming content prior to making a purchase, and 51% of them spend more than four hours researching, only 27%  allocate their budgets to content marketing.

The survey, “How Marketers Create + Consume Content,” revealed that despite how marketers themselves make purchasing decisions, they’re still putting their marketing budget in the channels with the least return on investment. 

Among the findings:

• Overall, 64% of those polled rely on non-biased, unbranded information before making a purchase and 70% of marketers said that user reviews resonate the most when they’re making a purchase decision.
• In addition, 45% of Fortune 1000 marketers claim they still spend the majority of their budgets on traditional advertising, even though only 5% said that it was the channel that delivers the most ROI.

“We, as marketers, know what works to connect with our audience and grow our brands – and we know what resonates for ourselves as consumers as well,” stated Alicianne Rand, VP of marketing, NewsCred.

The live survey polled more than 1,200 marketing leaders from Fortune 1000 brands. The findings are based on 463 attendee responses, according to NewsCred. Check out the infographic on the survey here.