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report 2023

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Some important stats we’ll go over in this report

1200
10 out
of 10>
98%
CMO

But first an introduction

Welcome to the inaugural edition of ourstate of contentreport.

Together with independent research firm PureSpectrum, we surveyed 1200+ marketing and creative professionals from various functional and executive roles, across a number of countries in the technology and consumer goods industries.

This report aims to offer mission-critical insights that address some of the most important challenges marketers face in relation to the creation of content, breaking down team and system silos, the distribution of content experiences at scale, and gaining the agility necessary to respond to changes in the global economy.

We’ve divided the report into four parts, each with a specific focus on the latest trends in content and its importance in the present year and beyond, that can help you enhance your marketing strategies. These sections cover the following topics:

Our focus is on addressing the challenges and priorities of marketing professionals and executives and providing insights to help you leverage content’s mission-critical role in navigating 2023’s uncertain waters successfully.

“ It’s no longer okay to say that digital transformation is around the corner. The digital reality is what we are living and teams are starting to look in the mirror and not love what they see.”
— Scott Brinker, Editor at Chiefmartech.com

Snapshot Summary

Key takeaways for 2023

1
In 2023, content retains its leading position in the world of marketing. CMOs recognize the importance of investing in content creation, management, and distribution to face the challenges of this year’s down economy and position their organizations for success in the years to come.
2
Many companies are struggling to meet the needs of today’s marketplace — including evolving consumer buying habits and their demand for a seamless digital content experience. However, CMOs are realizing that prioritizing digital transformation efforts and investing in an integrated digital ecosystem that supports content operations will make their business more resilient, responsive to changes in the market, and competitive.
3
Investments in technology that streamline the creation and distribution of personalized content experiences are becoming increasingly critical as they continue to drive sales, brand awareness, and trust while reducing costs. Unsurprisingly, most companies intend to focus on such investments.
4
Repurposing content is an effective strategy that can save production time, boost SEO, and create consistent content experiences across digital touchpoints. Investing in templating tools is becoming common practice among marketers looking to reduce reliance on expensive external agencies and create new formats of existing content easily and affordably without increasing headcount.

State of Content - Part 1

In a tough economic climate, brands are still investing in content

In the backdrop of rising inflation and a volatile market, companies are increasingly having to cut costs in order to remain competitive. However, not all strategies can ensure both short- and long-term success. To navigate these complex waters, content can serve as a lifeline[1] for organizations across industries. By utilizing the appropriate technology to create, manage, and distribute content, teams can expedite their time to market, boost channel performance, and execute on strategic initiatives with a measurable return on investment (ROI).

A centralized platform for managing content and content data — paired with integrated systems for managing customer data — can help digital market players respond quickly and effectively to changes in customer needs, demands, and expectations. Technology like digital asset management helps businesses be more agile and adaptable during a down economy by eliminating team silos and integrating creation and distribution channels.

Our research suggests that marketers and CMOs across industries recognize the value of content in uncertain times and plan to use technology that streamlines content creation, management, and distribution to stay ahead of the curve.

Finding 1

Brands worldwide will maintain or increase investments in creating, managing, and distributing content

Most tech and consumer goods companies are increasing or maintaining their investments in content creation and distribution to meet business goals and reduce costs. Content investments help to maintain brand visibility, deliver value to the target audience, build brand trust, and secure new keyword rankings, traffic, and shares. Failure to invest in enhancing content operations could disrupt brand momentum and risk losing customers who may not find the brand’s content when they're ready to purchase — ultimately affecting profits.

According to our data, the majority of marketers worldwide (69%) consider investments in content creation, management, and distribution a tactical decision to safeguard their finances during uncertain times. When we look specifically at CMOs, we see that interest in investing in content is even higher — with 76% of CMOs within tech and 75% within consumer goods companies expressing strategic interest. Notably, companies operating in both the B2B and B2C sectors report the highest rates of strategic investment in content, with 86% of CMOs planning to maintain or increase investment.

Has the down economy affected your organization's investment in content?

Consumer services/goods

IT, tech and telecoms

Significantly reduced investment

5%
10%

Slightly reduced investment

20%
14%

Investment remains the same

18%
23%

Slightly increased investment

41%
37%

Significantly increased investment

16%
16%

Has the down economy affected your organization's investment in content?

  • Consumer services/goods
41%

Slightly increased investment

20%

Slightly reduced investment

18%

Investment remains the same

16%

Significantly increased investment

5%

Significantly reduced investment

Finding 2

Marketers agree content is crucial for delivering product information and showcasing competitive differentiation

When asked about the significance of content in driving their company’s objectives, most CMOs cited the delivery of product and services information to customers as the primary benefit and stressed that by leveraging content to provide engaging experiences, companies are able to differentiate themselves from their competitors and showcase their unique value proposition to the market, drive website traffic, generate leads, and ultimately, increase revenue for the organization.

Looking at the numbers in detail, we see that over half of marketers globally (58%) recognize content as vital to present product information and/or demonstrate competitive differentiation — a percentage that goes up to 66% for digital directors specifically. Interestingly, companies operating in both B2B and B2C sectors rely on content the most for differentiation and showcasing their product offering (67%).

What best defines the role your content plays in driving your company objectives?

53%
of Marketing Directors
54%
of Creative Directors
66%
of Digital Directors
... agree content plays a vital role in delivering product and service info and showcase competitive differentiation.
“As we've had new disruptors come into the market, we now have a ton of content we need to make to keep up. Every single market channel requires new content; from TV to the website, emails and, obviously, social media.”
— Michael Robinson, Creative Director at Nautilus

State of Content - Part 2

Having a connected ecosystem is paramount in 2023

Marketing professionals around the world are acutely aware of the importance of their digital transformation efforts. Most businesses that are still struggling to meet the needs of today’s marketplace are now considering investing in consolidating their martech stack to face the challenges of 2023[2].

According to our research, in 2023, most companies are prioritizing cost reduction through the consolidation of technology systems and decreased reliance on external agencies.Their objective is to enhance strategic efficiency and leverage the right technology to bring content creation in-house. This enables them to maximize the impact of content throughout the buyer journey while eliminating team and system silos that often result in increased spending with little payoff.

Not only does this approach reduce costs, but it also accelerates time to market — leading to increased profit compared to slower competitors — and promotes brand consistency. Maintaining consistency while distributing content is, in fact, a challenge for most brands, as reported by 66% of respondents who regularly use more than 11 channels for their marketing and promotional activities. A connected digital ecosystem powered by a digital asset management platform helps businesses overcome this challenge.

As defined by McKinsey[2], a digital ecosystem consists of “interconnected sets of services through which users fulfill various cross-sectoral needs in one integrated experience”.

Such a system allows teams to manage the entire content lifecycle — from creation to automatic distribution at scale — and increases the value and flow of content across the organization and customer touchpoints. By ensuring the proper delivery of assets to the platforms that require them, businesses are able to deliver exceptional content experiences to their target audience at the right time, and reach their goals.

In today’s digital-first world, data is essential to inform future initiatives and evaluate the effectiveness of any strategy. A DAM solution at the heart of a digital ecosystem provides invaluable insights into asset usage and performance, enabling companies to elevate the efficiency and effectiveness of their digital strategy for future initiatives.

“We've learned how to go to market and promote our brand across all our platforms including socials, e-commerce platforms, and email marketing.
We use Bynder to host our assets and share them as needed.”
— Leena Jain, CMO at Humanscale

Finding 1

Most brands plan to find cost efficiencies by consolidating technology systems and/or reducing agency spend

Our research shows that minimizing unnecessary expenses is a significant priority for most organizations. In 2023, CMOs across industries are planning to consolidate their existing martech stacks by identifying and removing redundant or unused services and investing in technology that unites various systems into a single, integrated environment. By doing so, they aim to develop an effective integration strategy that drives consistency and engagement across the customer journey, while reducing operational costs.

The numbers show us that the vast majority of marketers (83%) across industries are focused on consolidating their technology systems and/or reducing agency spend by bringing part of the content creation process in-house and enhancing internal teams’ productivity. The interest is even higher among CMOs in specific industries, with 94% of those in tech companies and a remarkable 100% in consumer brands planning to consolidate technology systems and/or become less reliant on external agencies.

How do you plan to find cost efficiencies with content creation in 2023?

Consumer services/goods

IT, tech and telecoms

57%
54%
Consolidate technology systems
57%
48%
Reuse and repurpose content instead of creating bespoke new content
50%
40%
Reduce agency spend
42%
40%
Sponsor less content and host more on owned channels
24%
41%
Delay in-house creative hires
16%
20%
We have no plans to change the way that we appreach content creation in 2023
“With the old content-building system it could take weeks to actually do minor changes. So making changes to banners or ads in-house is a huge game changer - it’s way faster for us now.”
— Aleksander Kyhn Hansen, Graphic Designer at Milestone

Finding 2

CMOs around the globe intend to integrate DAM into their existing martech stack in 2023

Most CMOs in 2023 intend to invest in a DAM solution and integrate it with their existing martech stack. An effective integrations ecosystem allows brands to shift their application architecture to an ecosystem of modular building blocks that can be composed based on current needs. A composable, integrated ecosystem can automate the delivery of content directly from one system of record to all content-serving platforms. This allows teams to enhance digital experiences and streamline content creation, management, enrichment, transformation, and distribution for use across all channels in the customer journey while reducing the likelihood of error.

Our data shows that 85% of marketers worldwide intend to invest in a digital ecosystem powered by DAM. Notably, all CMOs (100%) in consumer brands and 98% in tech companies plan to invest in a connected ecosystem with a DAM platform at the center. When we consider the type of company, the results are just as impressive. In fact, a significant 88% of CMOs in B2B companies intend to invest in a connected ecosystem powered by DAM.

Which of the following technologies will you invest in in 2023?

CMS
Content Management System
DAM
Digital Asset Management
PIM
Product Information Management
Integrations
Integrations with existing tech stack
E-com
E-commerce platforms
27%
E-com*
35%
Integrations*
49%
PIM
50%
DAM
58%
CMS
CMS
Content Management System
DAM
Digital Asset Management
PIM
Product Information Management
Integrations
Integrations with existing tech stack
E-com
E-commerce platforms
“ We now have a well-coordinated system to get new content out and launch products in a very dynamic way. In terms of ROI, we’re spending way less time tracking assets across multiple groups of people. It’s a matter of operational efficiency and we see its value reflected across our marketing.”
— Austin Holt, Digital Marketing Manager at Santa Cruz Bicycles

State of Content - Part 3

Content experiences are key for brands to stand out

In 2023, a brand's success heavily relies on the content experiences they create for customers and prospects. These experiences should cover all interactions with the brand aimed at educating, informing, engaging, and inspiring the buyer. Achieving an exceptional content experience involves a comprehensive approach that prioritizes creating alignment to meet customer expectations, boosting engagement, and, ultimately, revenue.

Put simply, delivering a content experience means delivering the right content to the right people at the right time and to the right place. This requires careful orchestration of both customer and content data, and brands that fail to prioritize a consistent content experience risk losing customers to competitors.

The benefits of delivering content experiences across the customer journey are improved customer attraction and retention—ultimately benefiting a company's bottom line—but brands are facing increasing complexity in delivering relevant, contextualized, and personalized content[3] to an ever-increasing number of channels with speed and agility. This has resulted in content chaos, compromising customer engagement and a brand's bottom line.

Finding 1

Localization and personalization efforts remain pivotal for a brand’s success

Customers now expect personalized interactions with brands and will readily change vendors if this need goes unmet. They turn to their devices for instant solutions[4] to whatever their need is at any given moment. Brands that can deliver these instant solutions are the ones that will thrive even during uncertain times. CMOs recognize that personalization fuels performance and better customer outcomes—with faster-growing businesses generating 40% more revenue[5] through personalized content experiences than their slower counterparts.

Over half of the marketers surveyed in our research (54%) have identified improving localization and personalization efforts as key objectives in 2023. The data shows that enhancing personalization is perceived as more mission-critical at the executive level, with 60% of CMOs across industries prioritizing this (59% within consumer brands and 60% within tech companies).

59%
60%

CMOs plan to improve their localization and personalization efforts this year

Consumer services/goods

IT, tech and telecoms

Finding 2

Streamlining the creation of digital content experiences is top of mind for marketers in 2023

To deliver exceptional content experiences that resonate with buyers, brands need to effectively coordinate the management of processes, data systems, and distribution channels. Working manually and in silos is time-consuming and often leads to errors that can harm a company’s reputation.

The totality of marketers globally (98%) prioritize faster time to market and/or the delivery of content experiences across platforms this year. We see the same percentages across industries, roles, and company type suggesting organizations around the world are currently struggling to meet consumer demand for relevant content in a timely manner.

What are your biggest content creation, management and distribution goals in 2023?

54%

Improve localization and personalization efforts

50%

Create consistent content experiences on all platforms

48%

Speed up time to market

47%

Accelerate digital transformation

21%

Align internal teams and save time

“ As our company scales and we expand into new markets we also need to localize assets and manage their distribution. With our team in the UK, a big priority for our design team is to enable that team who works the opposite hours of us to have full line of sight into the assets we are creating.”
— Danielle Giroux, Creative Director at Clio

State of Content - Part 4

Driving more value from content remains a top priority

Marketers who want to succeed in 2023 while saving money and reducing reliance on external agencies are realizing the value of repurposing content in 2023 — an effective but often overlooked content strategy. Not only does it save production time, but it can also boost search engine optimization (SEO) by keeping content up-to-date, relevant, and easy to find.

By repurposing existing content into new formats, such as infographics, social media posts, video snippets, blogs, and podcasts, marketers can easily and affordably create a consistent content experience for their audience across various digital touchpoints. And by leveraging the right systems within a composable digital ecosystem, performance metrics can inform future strategies and help brands stay ahead of the competition.

Repurposing content can be difficult without the right technology to speed up and scale content creation. Templates offer a solution for marketers and creatives alike, allowing them to avoid relying on expensive external agencies for simple content variations.

By incorporating efficient templating tools into their digital ecosystem, teams can easily reuse ready-to-go content, maintain brand consistency, eliminate time-consuming design work with standardized visual elements, and automate processes to create large volumes of content quickly, resulting in faster speed to market.

“The number of assets we create is an enormous figure, so we need to make sure we manage this process efficiently, while also ensuring that we have a platform that allows us to reuse content—not only across brands, but across markets.”
— Jonathan Ansell, Digital B2B lead at Britvic

Finding 1

Nearly 10 out of 10 CMOs plan to reuse existing content to increase efficiency and/or reduce spend

Marketers worldwide recognize the cost-saving benefits of repurposing content to scale content creation while increasing content relevancy, particularly during challenging economic times. An overwhelming 84% of marketers plan to reduce inefficiencies and/or save costs by repurposing existing content on owned channels — such as their website or via email.

This trend is even stronger among executives. 90% of CMOs at tech companies and 99% within consumer brands express intent to reuse content. When considering company type, intention to reuse content stands at 86% for companies operating both as B2B and B2C and 95% for B2B companies.

10 out
of 10

CMOs plan to reuse existing content to increase efficiency and/or reduce spend.

Conclusion

Due to economic challenges in 2023, marketing teams worldwide are reevaluating their content, reallocating budgets to choose the right tech tools, and rethinking their go-to-market strategies. CMOs want to improve efficiency, scale content, reduce costs, and quickly respond to market changes while ensuring future success and preserving brand identity without overburdening their teams.

But, according to our data, many teams still rely on outdated and disconnected legacy systems for creating, managing, and distributing their digital content. This hinders their ability to engage with customers and deliver personalized content to the right people at the right time.

66% of CMOs plan to invest in a DAM solution operating at the heart of a composable, integrated ecosystem to drive tangible ROI and boost efficiency. Bynder's cloud-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution provides a single source of truth for brand-, campaign-, and product-related assets. Its powerful functionalities, integrated modules, and broad range of integrations enable teams to create, store, manage, and distribute digital content efficiently, delivering a world-class content experience.

Bynder's DAM goes beyond managing digital assets by streamlining workflows, saving time and resources, accelerating time-to-market, and boosting webpage load speeds. It effectively allows brands to shift their application architecture to an ecosystem of modular building blocks that can be composed based on current needs. This way, teams can increase ROI and create business processes and digital experiences with the flexibility to adapt rapidly to changing contexts and needs.

Experience the power of Bynder’s cloud-based Digital Asset Management solution and transform your content strategy today.

Sign up for a demo with one of our experts to see how Bynder’s DAM can help you streamline workflows, save time and resources, and deliver a world-class content experience.

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Bynder goes far beyond managing digital assets. The digital asset management platform enables teams to conquer the chaos of proliferating content, touchpoints, and relationships in order to thrive. With powerful and intuitive solutions that embrace the way people want to work and a richly integrated ecosystem, Bynder is the brand ally that unifies and transforms the creation and sharing of assets, inspiring teams, delighting customers, and elevating businesses.

References

  1. Article: Inflation, Recession And Marketing Technology: Four Strategies For Tough Times
  2. Article: Ecosystem 2.0: Climbing to the next level
  3. Article: Getting Maximum ROI From Your Personalization Efforts
  4. Article: Why Every Business Must Embrace Personalization And Micro-Moments
  5. Article: Can Content Marketing ROI Beat Inflation?