• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, August 25, 2021

Email marketing teams are often called upon to offer content in emails, and in some cases produce it themselves. They may be getting more work dumped on them, judging by the 2021 Content Effectiveness Report, a study released Wednesday by Lucidworks.  

Of the executives polled, 52% have seen an increased demand for content in the past year. Another 33% report at least a small increase, and only 15% have seen none.

But are they prepared? 

The study reveals some surprising lapses. For instance, only 27% of firms measure content ROI. And 48% say of 50% or less of their content is regularly used by the stakeholders, with most salespeople using that percentage.  

In addition, there may be insufficient attention to maintaining brand consistency across all channels Here’s the current practice regarding guidelines:

• Don’t have guidelines — 15% 
• Only used by creative teams — 23%
• Don’t use or know where to find — 13%
• Followed some of the time — 19%
• They are well=known and used by most — 30% 

Then there’s the question of when content is best applied. 

Overall, 46% see content as most effective during the awareness stage, while 38% say it is most effective during consideration and 16% cite when the decision is being made. 

But it depends on which department the person is in: 60% of sales teams say content works best during the awareness stage, while 23% feel it is most effective during consideration. 

But 47% of marketing teams cite consideration and 39% cite awareness. 

That said, most firms are confident that their content is truly relevant to their customers:

• Absolutely — 29% 
• For the most part — 39%
• Somewhat — 24%
• Not very — 6% 
• Not sure — 2%

But that doesn’t mean content is influencing consumer decisions. Only 13% of those polled say it happens 75% of the time, and 23% 47-to-75%. Another 36% say buyers are influenced in 24-50% of cases, and 28% it’s less than 25%.  

• Less than 25% — 28% 
• 24-50% — 36% 
• 50-75% — 23%
• Over 75% — 13% 

Worse, the executives polled do not find the content they consume from other business to be highly relevant: 

• Very relevant — 5%
• Relevant — 28% 
• Somewhat relevant — 57%
• Irrelevant — 10% 

What influences them to trust another firm’s content?

• Content relevancy — 26% 
• Content thoroughness—26%
• Brand recognition — 26% 
• Content appearance — 22% 

Meanwhile, down in the trenches, production bottlenecks abound: Only 11% of in-house marketing teams fulfill content requests in under a day, and 10% in one day. But 24% do so in two to three days, 16% in four to five days and 20% in one or two weeks. The remainder take three to four weeks or more. 

Teams use a variety of standing content templates to streamline the process: 

• Printed materials — 17%
• Social media — 17%
• Email — 16% 
• Presentations — 16% 
• Digital content — 12%
• Sales materials — 9%
• Display & banner ads — 9% 
• None — 2%