The marketing world is always changing incrementally, but there have been two major phases that we can see. The first had the goal of appearing in search listings with a measurement using a limited number of keywords. The second had the goal of content discovery, brand building, and connecting with the audience across a number of different platforms with a measurement of social network activity and a moderate number of keywords.

Due to several major problems, we are about to see another major shift. Nathan Safran says there are two primary issues that will force every content marketing agency to see a third phase.

Issue #1: 70 percent of marketing executives has difficulty measuring the impact their marketing has. That’s a pretty significant number of companies that are missing out on appropriately and effectively measuring this vital information.

Issue #2: Most content marketing agencies know they need to align their content with the client’s customers. However, forty-nine percent of marketers say they need to make some changes to their content to better align it with the buyer’s needs.

So what does this mean for your content marketing agency? The first phase was rather unsophisticated while it pushed information to a large audience without much measurement. The next phase provided a better understanding of where and how to push information to certain segments of the audience, as well as how to measure the effectiveness. This next phase will include much of the same as the second, with the added goal of pulling in buyers through an understanding of their journey and providing content during the actual buying stage.

This next phase will be an era of sophistication that will allow brands to actually connect with their audience, which builds relationships. A quality content marketing agency is going to be preparing for this next phase by researching the buyer’s journey, while building content in such a way that it will be beneficial to both the buyer and the brand. Contact Susan J. Campbell to receive quality content that will line up with the direction that content marketing is moving.