PR Newswire Survey Reveals Content Marketing Trends, Challenges and New Media Adoption by Companies in China

HONG KONG, Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- PR Newswire has released its comprehensive new report on content marketing and new media adoption in China. The report reveals that many Chinese companies now consider content marketing a critical component of their communications strategies, and the greatest challenges they face are content production and ROI. The report further found that new media usage will rise sharply in the next 12 months.

The survey, the largest ever held in China on this topic, was conducted from August to October 2012 and collected 1,387 questionnaires from marketing, branding and communications personnel, as well as C-suite executives.

The full report on China's Content Marketing Trends is available for download in both English and Chinese, below are some of the key findings from the survey:

Content marketing & new media trends in China

• 95% of companies surveyed consider content marketing important or critical. 40% of top executives (C-suite/business owners) manage or participate in brand-related content marketing activities.
• In the coming 12 months, companies surveyed will significantly increase the use of new media tools for content marketing, including Weibo (microblogging) platforms, mobile marketing, as well as multimedia elements such as images and videos. The use of blogs is expected to drop considerably.
• 57% of companies surveyed allocate less than RMB 500,000 of their budget to content marketing (excluding advertising), while 75% allocate not more than 50% of their total corporate communication budget to content marketing. In the next 12 months, budgets allocated to content marketing through channels such as online media, Weibo and the mobile internet are expected to rise significantly.

News releases as an important content marketing tool

• 88% of companies surveyed use news releases as the most common tool for content marketing. The majority of news releases issued by companies involve a new product launch (76%) or a promotional/marketing campaign (59%).
• Trade show /exhibition, automobile, education and IT sectors distribute the most news releases.
• The amount of budget allocated by companies to content marketing has a direct impact on the way companies issue news releases.

Multimedia for content marketing

• 70% of companies said that they shoot and produce videos for PR /marketing activities. Foreign-funded companies as well as companies in the education, FMCG and advertising sectors are particularly aggressive in their use of videos, with 80% of these firms doing so.
• Over 90% of companies agree that the inclusion of customized components including pictures and videos in news releases enhances the readership.

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire (http://en.prnasia.com) is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms that enable marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers to leverage content to engage with all their key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry 57 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content -- from rich media to online video to multimedia -- and then distribute content and measure results across traditional, digital, mobile and social channels. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire enables the world's enterprises to engage opportunity everywhere it exists. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, and is a UBM plc company.

Media Contact:
Sarah Tam
Regional Marketing Director, Asia ex-China
sarah.tam@prnasia.com