Has Generative AI Impacted 2024 Content Marketing Budget?

The content marketing landscape has evolved tremendously over the past years with AI taking center stage in shaping content marketing strategies and budgets. One question that cannot be ignored is whether AI will eventually replace human marketers altogether. While AI has changed various aspects of content marketing, the reality is more nuanced. In this article, we will analyze the Content Marketing Institute research on where marketing teams are allocating their 2024 content marketing budgets in this age of AI.???

Should Marketing Teams be Spending Less on Content Due to AI?

While there are use cases for AI such as social media posts and generating topic ideas, the main goal of creating content is to connect with your audience. With Generative AI, elements of originality and human touch are lost as Chat GPT will give you the same information it will give your competitors.

To cement trust with your customers, storytelling and emotion are key, both of which AI is incapable of mastering. Only a human content marketer can generate thought leadership content that sets you apart from your competitors.

Alie Orlando, senior director of content strategy at Appfire explains why AI should be approached with caution.

?“…..I would never use AI for drafting original interesting content that's going to differentiate the company and surprise and Delight people I don't think it's effective at trying to trick Google by flooding the internet with AI-generated content but there are absolutely companies that are going to use it that way in my perspective that's all the more need for us to have human intervention in creating content that actually is going

to surprise and Delight people and differentiate the company um but it is something we're definitely keeping an eye on”

Not yet convinced? Let's analyze research from the Content Marketing Institute and see where marketing teams will increase their content marketing budget in the coming year.?

Content Marketing Statistics to Inform Your 2024 budget spend?

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) asked marketing respondents where they plan to increase their marketing spending efforts in 2024 and these are the findings ;

“Sixty-nine percent of B2B marketers say they would increase their investment in video, followed by thought leadership content (53%), in-person events (47%), paid advertising (43%), online community building (33%), webinars (33%), audio content (25%), digital events (21%), and hybrid events (11%).”

Video

Video content will increase in the coming year as the sampled marketers from CMI research allocate a whooping Sixty-nine percent of their overall marketing budget to video content, which is more than half.

The increase in the popularity of TikTok and Instagram reels has driven video to be the top way buyers want to consume content. This trend is not slowing down soon as attention spans decrease and businesses are finding ways to relate to their customers in quick, engaging ways.

Whether you opt for a professionally produced video for your website pages or simple short videos on your social media pages, video comes first in personalizing your customer journey and offers a good solution in the present times of undifferentiated Generative AI content.?

Video is a chance marketers are utilizing to cement trust with customers. But let's face it, producing video content can be intimidating, but it does not have to. There are few generative AI solutions that make producing videos less terrifying. From smart video editing software to generative text to video apps like Descript, all it takes is to start small such as allocating some budget to short-form video strategy for social media video content.?

Deb Mukherjee, head of marketing at Numero asserts the force of video content.

“...we're going really hard on video from Q1 and we're probably going to invest in ? people creating videos for us on the editing side, production side all of that stuff even distribution for that matter, so this is is that something that you're planning to outsource.”

Thought leadership Content

According to the SEMRush blog, thought leadership content is all about sharing inspirational, research-driven content that drives change and creates educational value.

According to the CMI`s statistics, 53% of B2B marketers will increase their budget in thought leadership content. AI has flooded the internet with poor-quality,machine-written content, and most brands are shifting to thought leadership content to achieve goals like:??

• Earn brand loyalty. When you lead with original research like the CMI's content marketing trend research, you earn your customers' trust.
• Increase SEO value. Thought leadership content that lives on your website drives organic traffic when you gain backlinks to your website.

The rise in thought leadership content is the effect of generative AI content overload. Brands are taking this as the opportunity to differentiate from the crowd by creating expert-driven content to claim topical authority.

Alie Orlando, senior director of content strategy at Appfire had this to say when asked how her team allocates budget in the present world of AI.

“Our budget would be pretty extensive on the organic front like this year alone on the organic side we got probably millions in the pipeline from organic growth and that combines with SEO, social media, B2B influencer marketing which is sort of also part of content um next year it's going to be about 30 to 40% of the entire marketing budget absorbed in other areas so our content-specific budget is not a large piece of the all marketing budget we also have a pretty large in-house team of content Specialists so the remaining budget does go to agency support, research reports things that we're Outsourcing in terms of research…”

Personalization- Focussed Content

Marketing teams are increasing their budget to forty-seven percent for in-person events, online community building (33%), webinars scooping (33%), audio content (25%), while digital events and hybrid events increased spending to (21%), (11%) respectively.

Virtual initiatives like webinars, audio content, and hybrid events allow marketing teams to personalize the customer`s journey during and after the event.

Conclusion

Although AI can be useful in low-strategy tasks like social media posts, B2B marketing teams should be aware of its limitations and allocate their content marketing budget accordingly. From the CMI data, most B2B marketers are not factoring AI in their marketing budget. If anything, AI has just fuelled their drive for more human-centric storytelling. As you budget for the coming year, gather all your marketing teams on the table and analyze recent industry data trends and your overall marketing goals to make the most informed 2024 content marketing budget spend.?