Altimeter Group Maps Content Marketing Vendor Landscape

SAN MATEO, CA–(Marketwired – May 13, 2014) – Altimeter Group, a research and consulting firm that helps companies understand and act on technology disruption, today announced its latest research, The Content Marketing Software Landscape: Marketer Needs & Vendor Solutions, by Rebecca Lieb. Available at no charge as part of Altimeter’s Open Research model, the report and webinar provide marketers with an assessment and decision making process to navigate the highly complex and rapidly changing content marketing landscape. The research explores current content marketing technology requirements in large enterprises and explains what tools are available, and critically, offers strategic guidance on selection criteria for tools that will serve and scale to the needs of an integrated and successful content marketing operation.

Altimeter’s new research walks marketers through a process to identify and vet relevant content marketing vendors, exploring point systems, enterprise platforms and hybrid solutions. The research identifies key content marketing scenarios and use cases and also pinpoints integration concerns. Numerous content marketing issues across the enterprise are uncovered, illustrating that despite the growing acceptance of content marketing, the need for a strategic and unified approach has never been greater.

Altimeter’s research brings new content marketing trends and statistics to light:

• Fewer than 20% of marketers report a formalized or documented content strategy across their brand or business units
• Only 18% of marketers say content is integrated across business units
• Marketer spend and actual, stated needs and requirements often do not correlate
• Bigger isn’t always better in terms of content marketing software, despite the fact that large firms such as Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce.com are battling to dominate the field

Altimeter’s research profiles over 50 vendors, and shows that varied approaches to content marketing and a heterogeneous product landscape means the marketplace offers very few “apples-to-apples” product comparisons. Against this backdrop, Altimeter’s checklist shows how marketers should approach the review and selection of content marketing tools via best practices, from assessment and purchasing, to content creation and implementation, to deliver company-wide results including smoother collaboration, creation and workflow, distribution, and better measurement.

“Content is the ‘atomic particle’ of all marketing, essential for fueling not only owned, but also paid and earned media,” said Rebecca Lieb, analyst at Altimeter Group. “This research is designed to help marketers make sense of an incredibly complex and rapidly changing landscape, and also to provide readers with a process to help them select the right tools not only for short term needs, but also for longer term concerns such as scale, convergence, and enterprise integration.”

More About Altimeter’s New Research and Related Webinar
C-level managers with marketing responsibility, as well as digital, content and social strategists, and branding, marketing, PR and communications professionals, will want to attend the free Altimeter Group webinar being held on Wednesday, June 4th at 10:00 a.m. PDT to review key research findings and ask questions of lead analyst Rebecca Lieb. In addition to its research in the area, Altimeter provides a range of closely related service offerings, including a Content Strategy Roadmap, Content Tools Advisory and Content Audit services. For more information visit http://www.altimetergroup.com/services.

About Altimeter Group
Founded in 2008 by Charlene Li, Altimeter Group is a research and consulting firm that helps companies understand and act on technology disruption. Distinguished by a research-based approach, a holistic view, and the experience of its team, Altimeter Group shares its independent and open research via reports, webinars, speeches, and more. Altimeter Group also offers advisory services to business leaders who wish to explore the specific implications of technology disruption, and has more than 100 active clients, including leading technology solution providers and Fortune 500 companies. Named by Fast Company as one of the “Five Most Creative Small Businesses,” the firm is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., with offices on the East Coast. For more information, visit http://www.altimetergroup.com.