Growth of revenue from content marketing is set to rise to $54.25 billion in 2019.
A recent study from PQ Media tracked all branded content across the world and found that the global content marketing revenue grew 14.4% in the first quarter of 2015 alone. This is a faster increase rate than the full year of 2014, where the total rose by 13.3% to $26.7 billion.
Analysis of these figures suggested that the enormous increase in 2015 was due to marketers refocusing on Millennials, who are more mobile and in control of their digital environments, yet also demonstrate shorter attention spans. With this information, market content has been adapted to suit these requirements, which may explain while takings from digital marketing received a 27.7% increase last year.
However, out of all of the areas tracked, hybrid marketing remained the largest section, with $14.09 billion in revenues worldwide, though over half of this was made up of print and digital hybrid magazines and advertorials. Television continues to be the most consumed media worldwide, yet consumers lean in favour of time-shifted streams in order to skip ads, resulting in marketers steering towards more product placements and integrating their brands into the media actually being consumed.
The US had the highest grossing content media, with total revenues of $12.11 billion, higher than that of the next fifteen global territories combined. The US has a 12.2% increase from the previous year, ranking it 11th in growth rate worldwide.
PQ Media hypothesised that global revenues would grow even more over the next four years, to the point of doubling the current amount of $26.7 billion to $54.25 billion, with a 15.4% compound annual growth rate.
“Content is, was, and always will be king of the media and entertainment business,” said Patrick Quinn, Chief Content Officer of PQ Media, “And content marketing has emerged as the most vibrant and talked-about marketing sector of the past five years, building momentum at a faster growth rate each year, from 2010 through to 2014.”