61% of Australian marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget over the next 12 months, but only 29% say their current content is effective.

A study from the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) and the US-based Content Marketing Institute (CMI) shows 96% of Australian marketers are using content marketing to reach out to customers, with each using an average of 12 individual tactics.

Australian companies allocate 25% of their total marketing budget to content marketing, most commonly towards the company website, a content investment for 88% of marketers, social media (83%), enewsletters (82%) and in-person events (74%). On average four social media platforms are used to distribute content, with the most popular channels being Facebook, used by 71%, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn both on 67%.

“While Australian marketers have widely adopted content marketing, only 29% believe their content marketing is ‘very effective’ or ‘effective,’” Joe Pulizzi, founder and executive director of Content Marketing Institute says.

Australians have embraced content but are realising it requires a new skillset and change in mindset, adds Jodie Sangster, ADMA CEO. “It is the merging of marketing, journalism and PR. They need to think more like journalists and publishers rather than marketers … often there’s a tendency to slip back into delivering selling messages.”

The joint ‘Content Marketing in Australia: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends’ study shows Australians are adopting content marketing more readily than their North American and UK counterparts. 61% plan to increase investment over the next 12 months – more than their North American peers who, in another recent CMI study, said they will increase their content marketing budgets by 54%.

However, overseas practitioners have more faith in their current content efforts, with 39% of UK marketers and 37% of North American marketers believing their content marketing is effective.

Producing enough content as well as engaging content, were universal challenges for Australian, UK and North American marketers alike. Australian marketers are also slightly more challenged by a lack of buy-in/vision (13%) from the top than their North American (8%) and UK (7%) peers.

The findings will be presented in full at Content Marketing World in Sydney, 4-6 March 2013.

A total of 216 marketers from a range of industries and company sizes were surveyed between August 2012 and January 2013 for the Australian study.