Financial services enterprises are pivoting away from traditional media channels and doubling down on cost-effective content marketing to reach wider audiences, according to a new study by Yell.

The financial services specialist survey polled the opinions of 250 senior marketers in the industry and revealed key trends and interesting insights its latest annual State of Financial Marketing report. The main takeaway is that marketers are looking to make budgets go further, as the majority are not planning to increase spending on the activity during the next 12 months.

While budgetary thresholds are mostly standing still, the same is not true for content marketing investment. This appears to be a primary focus for those in financial services, as a sizeable 77% said they will spend more engaging articles, blogs, videos and infographics in the coming months, while 62% will divert more funds into improving and maintaining corporate websites.

Social media is another important outlet, as 54% of marketers are planning to increase paid social media spending, while a similar number will do the same for email marketing. These forms of digital marketing are becoming more popular in contrast to more traditional channels, such as print, radio and TV, where investment is dropping off.

There will be a net reduction in spending on ads on “passive” traditional channels during the next year. Print advertising will see the biggest decline, as 23% of marketers said they would spend less in this area. One in ten also said TV advertising budgets will fall. This indicates more “active” channels, such as content and social media, are now the go-to options for marketers.

As the switch to digital continues, marketers still have several pressing concerns and challenges that are preventing them from getting the most from their endeavours. Just under half said a lack of time and resources is making it hard to achieve their objectives. This is a problem they plan to address by working with an expert third party, such as a content agency.

Only one in five said time and resource constraints were a “significant” issue two years ago, so this is an alarming rise in a comparatively short period. Marketers are also struggling to get to grips with the latest wave of cutting-edge technology, as 80% said inefficient platforms are hindering their efforts to achieve targets and goals.

“The pressure being placed on financial services marketers to do more with the same, or even fewer resources, is once again the top of the charts when it comes to marketers’ concerns,” Yell founder partner, Nigel Roberts, noted. “Last year it was our contention that this was due to a massive increase in channels that marketers are being asked to service, without necessarily being given more budget or people to assist them.”

He added: “This year it feels like much of the same, but there is a sense that the focus is moving away from traditional channels, with content delivery being regarded as having greater importance within financial service institutions.”

According to a new study published by Dun & Bradstreet, the vast majority of B2B marketers believe data and analytics play a major role in personalising content and driving sales, but around half are still not confident about the quality of data they have at their disposal.

The annual B2B Marketing Data Report shows a growing recognition that data underpins marketing strategies and campaigns, with 89% believing that data quality is a key driver for content marketing and sales. This is a 15% increase from the previous study, and that figure has steadily tracked upward for several years.

Data is now a crucial business asset for several reasons, according to B2B marketers. The top activities that data underscores are campaign execution and personalised content. In a world where brands are serving up more materials across social media and corporate websites, data is now viewed as a tool to help them cut through the noise and connect with target audiences effectively.

In addition to optimising content campaigns, data is also being used to generate customer insights via analytics. This also feeds into content strategies and improves decision making throughout the marketing pipeline. Other top activities centred around data include sales prospecting, sales closing, and lead qualification and scoring. Basically, data is now an essential part of marketing, from the first stage to the last.

While data has become more important during the last 12 months, B2B enterprises are more hesitant about the quality of data they have. This lack of confidence is making it more difficult to manage content marketing initiatives at a time when these efforts have never been so crucial to driving awareness, engagement and sales.

“B2B companies are currently at a crossroads,” Dun & Bradstreet Global Head of Marketing, Josh Mueller, noted. “They overwhelmingly understand the value of data to their organizations, but have not yet figured out how to collect, integrate and apply that data in insightful ways to help make business decisions. Organizations that have established a solid data foundation as core to their sales and marketing programs can improve performance over their counterparts that don’t have that data foundation.”

One other issue that is holding B2B marketers back is a lack of data integration with the wider business. A sizeable 90% of the 250 marketers surveyed said they find it challenging to line up marketing data with sales and other activities when attempting to execute campaigns across a plethora of channels. Just a third said they can make sense of a buyer’s journey. These blind spots subsequently make it more difficult to serve up the right content at the right time. Integrating data with CRM is another common problem.

“By using data to connect sales and marketing activities, businesses can better identify new opportunities, focus on the right audience with the right message, arm sellers with the right intelligence, and provide learnings that enable them to continually improve their strategy,” Mueller added. “When done right, this is the winning formula for more personalized, efficient, and impactful marketing at scale.”

According to the latest biannual CMO Survey, Marketing spending on social media has hit record levels during the last year even though many brands are still unable to determine their return on investment and prove its real impact.

Marketers now invest 13.8% of their total budgets on social media, which is a 4% increase from the figure reported 12 months ago. It also represents the fastest rate of growth and suggests that while Facebook has recently tweaked algorithms to reduce the visibility of brand content in news feeds, other platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, may be picking up the slack.

While spending has increased, just a quarter of respondents said they can quantitatively prove the impact of its social marketing campaigns. More worryingly, 39.3% said they had no idea about its impact at all. Therefore. knowledge gaps still exist, but the situation is improving. Last year, 45% could not determine the impact of their social marketing, while only 16.3% could.

Rising social spending agrees with the findings from a separate study released by BuzzSumo and Buffer last week. It found that there were 8.1 million pieces of content posted on Facebook during the second quarter of 2018, which is an increase of 1.1 million pieces over the figure from the first quarter. On average, brands are now creating 90,000 posts every day.

While quantity is soaring, brands are seeing a slowdown in organic engagement, either due to the emergence of other social platforms or of the algorithm change noted earlier. There were more than 29 million interactions on Facebook in Q1 2017, but this number has decreased sharply and stood at just 12.8 million for the latest quarter.

Engagement is a challenge for brands, but the CMO Survey found that marketers are still committed to increasing social media spending. They expect to allocate 16.3% of their budgets to the practice during the next year, and this amount will increase to 22.9% by 2023.

Third-party agencies are also playing a more pivotal role in the social marketing mix, as 21.7% of a brand’s activity on these networks are now handled by agencies, a marked increase over the 18.7% figure from last year. These agencies are usually adept at managing a range of content output, from editorial articles and blogs to engaging infographics and video.

Finally, the CMO Survey also shined a light on the changing role of marketing and how it has broadened over the last five years. The clear majority of marketers now lead their company’s brand activity, social media presence and PR. However, there has been a slight decrease in marketers taking the reins for ad campaigns and promotions.

Political issues are a difficult subject for brands to parse, as 67.8% believe having a say on public affairs can limit their ability to interact and engage with a wide audience and retain current customers. Six in ten also believe that incorporating politics into content and messages could make them stand out in the wrong way.

According to a new annual report published by Clutch, four out of five consumers have purchased a product after reading a high-quality piece of content marketing from a brand online.

Content has long been a key driver for awareness, sales and revenue, but it is particularly impactful during the search stage when pushing potential customers along the sales cycle is so important. Serving up engaging content at the right time can make it much easier to convert interested buyers into paying consumers.

Editorial articles, blogs, videos and infographics can do this in several ways according to the study. Half of the respondents said they would be more likely to conduct research about a company and take a closer look at their line of services and products after consuming content, while 53% said it would drive them to return to a brand’s corporate website.

The big takeaway for brands is that content makes consumers more motivated to engage with them. Just over two-thirds said content marketing campaigns add value and are useful, while the majority prefer editorial and high-quality content in the form of articles and videos capable of addressing their own wants, needs and concerns.

“Readers are aware that [online business content] is created for marketing purposes, but appreciate brands that provide honest, reliable, high-quality content,” Rebrandy executive Louisa McGrath said in the report. “This builds trust and awareness for a brand, which is invaluable and of growing importance.”

Clutch noted that consumers now expect certain hallmarks in content to deem it to be high quality. These include “originality,” in the sense of providing a new slant on an already established topic with deeper analysis, new information or unique points, and a “narrative”. People are now eager for storylines, themes and case studies to be included.

Brands should also look to discuss issues that may be relevant to their audience and customers, provide actionable tips to help them and built trust, and back up what they are saying with authoritative, trustworthy sources.

Consumers are now also more aware of the content marketing campaigns deployed by brands, but this is not seen as a negative development, as audiences want to read and view messages that are relevant and valuable in a convenient manner. In fact, more people want content to be served up across a variety of platforms to meet their consumption demands.

“Current technology allows people to consume content in all hours of the day across different devices,” Lead to Conversion executive Andrew Travers said. “Providing content in multiple formats allows marketers to put their message in front of target audiences in a way that’s most convenient for them.”

For those interested in steering away from some of the tell-tale signs that a piece is content marketing, 27% of respondents said that being published on the company’s website is the primary giveaway. This was followed by having links to the company’s website, an author biography linked to the company and a discussion of products and services that the company provides.

Personalisation is all the rage as a major new trend for content marketers to improve campaigns, but a new study by video platform VidMob has found that the traditional means of doing so may longer be relevant for younger audiences.

The new survey polled the opinions of 2,000 16-to-34-year-olds, evenly distributed between Gen Z (16 to 24) and Millennials (25 to 34), about how they act online when consuming content to uncover interesting behaviours and trends in regard to social media and video ads.

Taste and style appear to be the top priorities for young adults when engaging with content, as 55% are more likely to interact with an ad if they believe it reflects these factors. Ads with celebrities (45%) also resonate, but ads with people the same age (29%) are less likely to do so.

Brands often use traditional personalisation that puts audiences into distinct categories according to age, gender or ethnicity, but it appears young people don’t fit as neatly into these long-standing methods. However, the study did find subtle variances between age groups.

For example, just 32% of Millennials responded positively to ads with a visually beautiful theme, but this figure increase to 41% for Gen Z. The latter also takes umbrage at ads that are overly repetitive, which supports an established trend that teens and younger audiences are more likely to be turned off by a brand if they are too repetitive in their messaging.

Viewing an ad several times does not reinforce a message for Gen Z, and VidMob Chief Marketing Officer Stephanie Bohn revealed that just 25% in this age group says multiple viewings help them to remember what a brand is advertising. However, Millennials appreciate brevity more, as 48% said shorter clips are preferable, while Gen Z places a greater focus on the quality of music.

Social media habits among younger audiences continue to shift, but 42% say they are spending more time on these platforms compared to last year. Stories are particularly popular right now, as a considerable 70% of 16-to-24-year-olds say they watch this format on a regular basis on both Instagram and Snapchat. YouTube has also seen a bigger spike in user growth in this age group year-over-year compared to Millennials.

“Social users are bombarded with content, and it’s harder than ever for advertisers to capture attention, particularly the attention of Gen Z,” said Bohn, who urged brands to focus on serving up content “with style” to drive engagement. “This report has implications for marketers looking to connect with younger audiences. Demographics and the celebrity factor also influence likability, but sense of style is the leading factor.”

She added: “What we glean from these findings is that younger consumers respond better to ads that offer a reflection of themselves, or their aspirational selves. Celebrity status seems to be less influential than personal style but certainly nothing to dismiss, especially when trying to reach Gen Z.”