• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, July 7, 2015

According to new research by Pulsepoint and Digiday, brand engagement is at the heart of content marketing, cited by 66.8% of UK and US agency and brand professionals. Similarly, in a recent study by Ascend2, 52% of marketing professionals worldwide also said improving customer engagement is an important content marketing goal.

Among US marketing professionals polled, 48% were not confident that their marketing content drove customer engagement at all. The most-cited challenges to engaging customers through content were maintaining a two-way dialogue and measuring business results.

Pan Communications noted that these were related, as marketers’ inability to determine content’s business impact meant they couldn’t tailor interactions, as they jumped from one communication channel to the next. Similar to solid dialogue, one in 10 respondents also struggled to execute omnichannel campaigns, a “glaring concern,” according to the study.

Ascend2 found that 33% of respondents cited the inability to measure effectiveness as a challenge to achieving content marketing success, and 27% said the same about lack of cross-channel integration.

60% of agency and brand professionals and publishers said automation tools would allow for more precise data-driven targeting, and a 58% would be able to resolve the ROI issue with better measurement and optimization techniques, says the report

Technology will change content marketing and help address these issues, concludes the report. When marketers envisioned which trends will have the largest impact on marketing over the next five years, 38% cited the convergence of marketing and technology as the first response.

The report says that a study by Curata found that 59.8% of US marketers planned to increase content marketing technology this year. Concluding, the report says that adoption of such tools should allow marketers to ensure content creation is tailored to specific customer personas based on data and insights, as opposed to just taking a shot in the dark on each channel, and continuously engage consumers.

While content marketing and native advertising are separate categories, they both depend on updated modes of analysis and measurement, as well as the tech that fosters better engagement and response.

Michael Essany, for Mobile Marketing Watch, concludes that “… content marketing is the message…. native can be the envelope it is delivered in… marketers must treat each as its own… content marketing and native advertising’s strong relationship means tech will reshape both simultaneously… ”

See more from EMarketer here, and from Mobile Marketing Watch here.