LOOKING FORWARD t was interesting to see that internal communication is no longer the THE TOP TWO CONTENT MARKETING-RELATED AREAS OF Itop content marketing challenge. Rather, the top challenge this year INVESTMENT FOR 2022 ARE EXPECTED TO BE VIDEO (69%) is creating content that appeals to multi-level roles within the target AND EVENTS (DIGITAL, IN-PERSON, HYBRID) AT 61%. audience. This makes sense considering the crowded online environment that so many marketers are now working in, as well as the number of Areas of content marketing investment in 2022 people who changed jobs over the last 18 months. The top content marketing-related area of investment for 2022 is expected to be video (69%). This makes sense, as business has shifted online, and As our annual research has shown, the second top challenge — accessing marketers look for new/more ways to tell compelling stories to capture subject matter experts to create content — has been an ongoing issue for and keep audience attention. It’s also unsurprising that we see expected content marketers for several years. continued investment in events (61%), owned media assets (57%), and paid media (55%) — the top four areas by a long shot (see page 48). Content marketing areas of importance in 2021/2022 The top four content marketing-related areas that marketers said would be most important to their organizations in 2021 and 2022 were: Changes to SEO/search algorithms (62%) Data management/analytics (50%) Content marketing as a revenue center (44%) Changes to social media algorithms (42%) Algorithms have been named a top concern in our past research, but data management/analytics has overtaken that in importance. That’s not surprising, considering the proliferation of big data and the business shift to a virtual working and buying environment. 45