An increasing awareness of the importance of content marketing has led to some substantial news: a dedicated magazine is being launched that focuses exclusively on this area.

The new magazine, called ‘The Content Strategist’, is published by Contently, a publishing company based in the US.  It will aim to provide “insights and analysis on brands, storytelling, and the future of content."

In recent years, web marketing has grown to the point where it has become a common currency of discussion in digital marketing circles. The magazine is seen as part of this process, and will highlight the burgeoning relationship between traditional PR/advertising and the digital world. The decision to make it available as a quarterly print version is also likely to appeal to brands and journalists who are looking to review trends over a period of months.

The magazine may have another important function: for journalists and writers who spend their time scrapping for an increasingly small pool of work from traditional publishers, it could represent a genuine opportunity to gain insight in to how their 'new' sources of work are repositioning themselves to produce content in a targeted, intelligent way.

Sam Slaughter, the Vice President of Content for Contently, said:

“We think that content marketing as an industry is big enough and important that it deserves its own publication.”

“A lot of journalists worry that they’re going to be writing advertorial copy,” he noted, “but as content marketing has matured it’s become apparent that the people that are doing it right are publishers just like any other publishers.”