Over a third of CMOs believe establishing a thought leadership position provides best results for sentiment and relationship building.

That’s according to the findings of iResearch Services’ thought leadership research, which asserts that content marketing, supported by issues-led thought leadership, is the way forward for CMOs.

The research gathered insights from 500+ CMOS/-1 professionals spanning the UK and USA. The aim of the research was to establish how, when and where marketing budgets are being allocated and through which brand channels the majority of effective content is being published.

The survey asked experienced marketing professionals to choose which form of marketing engages best with their audience and the budget allocated to each area; share their preferred techniques they use as a marketer to research their target audience when creating their marketing strategy; and analyse what types of content they believe provide the best engagement.

Key findings include:

• Content marketing receives the biggest marketing budget allocation (23.5%) compared to just 10% spent on product marketing and social media marketing separately.
• On a scale of 1-5, most marketers believe that content marketing delivers the highest levels of audience engagement compared to other forms of marketing.
• One third of marketers believe opinion based content provides the best engagement and almost three quarters (71%) believe thought leadership provides the best results for sentiment and relationship building, yet two thirds (66%) of marketers still believe advertising is an effective element of a marketing strategy. 
• 61% of marketers believe that issues-led content that shows an understanding of the audience’s business or industry challenges receives higher engagement.

The research shows the way people are consuming content is changing, with more CMOs utilising content marketing (23%) as opposed to investing in event marketing (11%), as the remainder of the calendar year will continue to focus on virtual events as a result of Covid-19.

Yogesh Shah, CEO of iResearch, said: “It is important for us to continue to address the needs of CMOs and to ensure they can effectively communicate with their target audience and therefore strengthen their sales pipeline. Creating relatable, issues-led content is key to this and it is clearly a form of content that is an integral part of all marketing strategies. Organisations need to position themselves as industry leaders by sharing their expertise, and a data-driven thought leadership strategy is exactly the way to do that.”

For the full research findings, click here.