Paid-for content adds to case for content marketing, says Forrester

According to a new report from Forrester, the case for investment in content by brands is strengthened by the increased willingness of consumers to pay for content. In a post about the report its author, Darika Ahrens, says:

… consumers are now willing to pay for ad-free content in a way that we couldn’t have conceived of five years ago. Forrester’s Online Paid Content Forecast, 2012 To 2017 (EU-7) shows that with successful paid services for music, video, games, and news now available in Europe, the number of online content buyers in Western Europe is set to grow between 8% and 12% over the next five years, and revenue from paid content is set to grow 65% — from €6,2 billion in 2012 to €10,2 billion by 2017.

What does this mean for marketers?

You will have fewer chances to reach consumers with traditional advertising.

The very services driving growth in digital content consumption are limiting pure advertising opportunity for brands, by adopting payment models that don’t require brand advertising for revenue and even driving consumer appetite for more ad-free content.

More purchasing of ad-free content means fewer opportunities to reach consumers. To understand this properly, we need an attention-centric perspective rather than a media-focused one.

There are no shortage of opportunities to buy media space – the real estate, as it were is increasing – it is just that the attention you will find there is dwindling -as in, there’s less people looking at it – and shallow people avoid the ads (skipping, blocking) or shift their focus three quarters have another screen right in front of them while they are watching TV, for instance.

Sensibly, Forrester says the solution for brand marketers is about more than just buying content, but developing their “content capabilities”.

That’s where our focus is at Brilliant Noise. We do create content for clients, but most of the work we do is around developing their capabilities: building teams, systems, platforms for creation, curation and distribution.

The report Develop Content Capabilities Now is available from Forrester.