Folio Magazine reports this week on a new study which finds the use of custom content as a marketing tool, grew nearly 100 percent over 2008 findings.

This shows that marketers are learning the lessons of David Meerman Scott (whom we interviewed One on one recently), who has been preaching about the advantages of quality custom content since the publication of his 2007 book, The New Rules Of Marketing and PR. Scott has been saying that marketers need to move away from traditional ways of interacting with customers such as advertising, public relations and marketing, and instead engage customers directly with the same types of content they are used to seeing in publications.

Marketers appear to be getting it as the survey found that more than 60 percent of those surveyed believe custom branded content is superior to direct mail or traditional public relations. Further, 29 percent of the average marketing department's budget is devoted to custom content (the highest such number according to the article was 32 percent in a 2009 survey).

Regardless, it proves that social media marketing has caught on in a big way and marketers are clearly finding new ways to get their message out, beyond traditional channels.

For more information:
- see the Folio article

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One on One with author David Meerman Scott
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