Content delivered at the right time will trump any other marketing

I don’t really know if I agree of disagree with you Sarah. I’ve long been involved with what it seems we now call Content (messages designed to sell a product that are actually interesting to people, and they choose to engage with coz they kinda feel indistinguishable from editorial?). But clearly any comms strategy aligned with business objectives can produce long term assets. While well planned and executed ‘content’ is a wonderful thing, perhaps to claim delivery of ‘profitable outcomes longer than any other form of marketing..’ is a long bow to draw.

“Messages designed to sell a product that are actually interesting to people, and they choose to engage with coz they kinda feel indistinguishable from editorial”

This has nothing to do with content marketing, and sadly goes to show how misunderstood our discipline still is, especially in Aus. Sounds like you’re referring to advertorial, native advertising or sponsored/branded content.

Sarah isn’t referring to paid media or basic comms. She’s talking about establishing an audience on one’s own properties by creating useful, informative or otherwise interesting content, with said content then being judiciously distributed to draw in a wider audience.

Done right, and if your media spend is close to zero (other than targeted distribution), content marketing is by definition more profitable than paid M&A. After all, you’re growing an appreciating asset, not pissing money down the drain by putting wide-funnel creative in front of swathes of uninterested viewers.

You can’t monetise an ad, but you can monetise a body of self-published excellence. If you’re good at it, you become the media property and other people pay to advertise with you.

Hi TG,

II disagree that any comms strategy aligned to business objectives produces long-term assets. Most advertising and too much of marketing develops no long-term asset, even marketing and advertising developed to a strategic plan. Once the advert is run or the broadcast is over, you have very little to show for it.

I appreciate your comment – glad you’re thinking about this stuff.

This is all very well, but how is your content delivered? If you say publications, how is any publication getting revenue from running your content so they can afford to do so?

This seems to be a universal missing link in the chain. The advert pays for publications to be able to run reviews, case studies and the like. This seems to be forgotten in the overall scheme of things, and people assume the advert will sell the goodies.

Hi David,

You raise a good point. There are plenty of ways to monetise content but not all content has to generate revenue. It depends on the business objective defined in the overall content marketing strategy. The goal may be to obtain more email subscriptions. It might be to drive more web traffic. Maybe the goal is to convert a social network on Facebook or Twitter to a database you own and control outright. In these cases, you carry the cost of producing the content.

Once you have an audience, you can monetise content in many different ways. You can run advertising on your own site. You can published sponsored content. You can run webinars, produce events or get other, complementary brands, to underwrite your content in a brandscaping project.

What’s become obvious is the traditional advertising model is becoming less and less effective. Brands need to start thinking about other ways they can raise money. Content marketing provides excellent opportunities to do just that.

Meanwhile, Trump delivered at the right time will obliterate everything.

i’m sorry but i find this piece suffers from a deficiency common to much marketing communications thinking – it seeks to extrapolate a singular experience into a universal truism

white papers and case studies are useful in the selling of business software because they bring the product benefits to life, simplify the complex, etc etc

no shit, sherlock

this does not mean content marketing is useful for selling cars, confectionary, or home and contents insurance

what’s more, the interwebs are chock full of billions of items of ‘content’, most it crappy, so to get your content in front of your audience you will need to spend $$$ on SEM and other forms of paid placement

in many cases content marketing promises a false economy – the money you save creating ‘intrusive’ advertising to run on paid media, you pay away in feeding the hungry beast of ‘always on’ content that dilutes away your key messaging

in marketing comms, there is no free lunch; just different flavours of snake oil being peddled from time time..

I see. Sorta like publishing a magazine full of entertainment and information and growing a reader ship then charging for advertising. Exactly like. Only thing new is it’s not in a newsagent.

Hi sam,

The example I gave in this piece was not a singular experience. It was my first experience. Since 1996, I’ve used content marketing strategies across many businesses and industries to grow an audience and create content brands.

One thing I learned over the years is that you need to attach content to business objectives. You don’t need to be ‘always on’ though I certainly was part of that movement when it started about 5 years ago. You find out pretty quickly broadcast mode is the best way to burn yourself out and exhaust your audience. That’s a lesson content marketers should have learned from advertising but had to find out firsthand.

Nowhere did I say content marketing was free of charge but you miss my point entirely when you call it snake oil. I explicitly stated it was hard work that produces tangible, long-term business assets. Those assets can be re-used in a variety of way making leads generated by content marketing significantly more cost effective than through traditional marketing and advertising.

I’m with same. I don’t read case studies before deciding which toilet paper I’m buying.

Surfstitch are an online surf shop. But wait? They own an online surf magazine. But wait? They own products that are sold in the surfshop and advertised in the magazine.

Tell me how much they are worth again?

Enough said. I know who I’m listening to…
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/.....tiH5j1R.01

Hardest part of content marketing, Sarah?
Your content of killer headlines and sharp copy.
And persuasive copy doesn’t come cheap.
Copy to entertain and inform.
Copy that never bores.
Few companies will pay for persuasive copy.

I think there is a key word missing from this headline:

“Good content delivered at the right time will trump any other marketing”

You can’t just throw out any old thing at the right time and get results. Brands that work with publishers to access an audience need to rely on the publisher’s expertise to create something that will resonate. Too often, content strategies become disjointed “advertorial” and the purpose is defeated.

It’s amazing how little love there is for “content marketing”, especially in the one industry that you’d think would love it the most.

No one who takes their career seriously sets out to create banal, throwaway content – but many of those who decry the shortcomings of content marketing are the very same people who pump out inane, bold-font trash for big-box retailers.

Not all content ends up the way we envisioned it, just as not all “big ideas” end up the way we want them to. Whether it’s a crap ad or crap sponsored content, quality is of course the key.

I don’t think Sarah was saying that content marketing is the ONLY thing you should be doing. It’s also not a one-off tactic – it’s a long-term slow burn. A big sign in your shop window saying “50% off” still works, and no one’s saying it doesn’t. But we aren’t talking about individual pieces of collateral. We’re talking about the overall strategy.

Facetiously saying you don’t read case studies when choosing toilet paper, or pointing out that white papers mightn’t work when selling cars, is missing the point entirely.

You could very feasibly create a competition, backed by social, listicles, picture posts, videos, etc, that pitted toilet paper brands against each other in increasingly bizarre and shareworthy challenges. Executed right, you’d surely get some brand lift.

This isn’t within itself content marketing – this is a tactic – but if you’re delivering ideas like this on a consistent basis and owning the media on which it’s hosted, bingo. That’s where we can call it content marketing.

By owning the media, we can also monitor and analyse our performance at a microscopically granular level – you’re not just dealing with “impressions” or other mushy metrics. We can also test, tweak and augment our strategy and campaigns to do even better next time. You can compile amazingly data-rich profiles of your audience with the right tools on hand. It’s inspiringly creative, but backed by robust measurement and reporting.

I don’t see how anyone could balk and say this isn’t an excellent strategic approach.

Hi Sarah,

Interesting discussion.

My take out is ‘[High quality] Content delivered at the right time [using the right medium] will [possibly] trump [m]any other marketing [communication tactics, in certain circumstances, for some objectives, but is not a silver bullet].

I believe in content.
I’m not sure I believe in content ‘marketing’. Unless you mean marketing ‘content’, which this article does very well.
I definitely do not believe in content marketing ‘strategy’.

A tactical activity is not a strategy. Creating content can be ‘a’ useful tool in a marketing communications plan.

But marketing communications are not ‘marketing’. Have we forgotten the other 3 Ps of the mix?

Marketing > Marketing communications.

Strategy is where you pitch your tent, not the hammer you used to knock the pegs in, nor the candle to attract the moths.

In marketing communications we are tasked with creating messages (long copy, infographic, case study, tweet, 15 second video, press release, customer dialogue, advertisement, direct mail piece, email, blah blah) in order to achieve an objective.

So ‘content’ is good, if nothing very new.

Finding a medium for the message whether it’s earned, owned or paid for is what separates PR from self publishing and advertising.

No magic bullet, no secret sauce. Call it what it is. Use the right tool at the right time for the right reward.

If you need to grab people’s attention interrupt them.
If people are looking at you, impress them.

Provide value and audiences will absorb your proposition.

But we don’t call this tactical activity ‘message marketing’ because that would sound daft, and we couldn’t sell it as a new expertise.

People can call it Content Marketing if they want. It hurts no one. Next year there will be a newer and shinier thing to differentiate skills in a crowded and undifferentiated marketing communications industry. I’m all for ‘specialists’. Remember how website programmers for Web 2.0 were lauded.

Warren Buffet has a saying, never ask a barber ‘do I need a haircut?’

Never ask a Content Marketer if you need content. The answer will always be yes.

Actually, Nick, I disagree. Most content marketing strategists are saying ‘no’ to content on many levels. In fact, the first question I ask is always, “Why do you want it?” As Robert Rose says, you should be creating the least amount of content you need to get the result you want.

I also think it’s a fallacy that good content rises to the top and bad content sinks. We’ve all seen too many examples of poor content spammed across the Internet like buckshot on opening day of hunting season.

Unfortunately, the Internet is awash in great content no one ever sees because it wasn’t marketed properly or wasn’t attached to a strategy. Or, the strategy wasn’t attached to a business objective. Content for the sake of content, even great content, isn’t content marketing and isn’t terrifically successful.

I do agree, however, that content and using content to market is nothing new. What is new, and what a lot of the comments here fail to take into account, is consumer behaviour has changed. Technology has given them the tools they need to avoid advertising and marketing they don’t want.

@Nick, you’re absolutely right. A tactic is not strategy, and content marketing isn’t a tactic.

It isn’t just part of a comms plan. It isn’t content on its own. It isn’t even “content strategy”. It’s a clearly defined (though evidently nearly universally misunderstood) approach that describes an overarching approach to one’s marketing at large.

“If you need to grab people’s attention interrupt them.
If people are looking at you, impress them.
Provide value and audiences will absorb your proposition.”

Absolutely. But the new wave of content marketing (data-driven and digitally assigned, rather than simple custom publishing) has emerged as a proven method to address modern issues like banner blindness, ad blockers, SEO requirements, and so on.

You’re also correct when you say “content” isn’t new. Cave paintings are a form of “content”.

But you seem to keep going back to the same false equivalence; you’re saying content marketing is just content production as a tactic. In the very article you’re commenting on, Sarah makes it explicitly clear that this isn’t what it is.

Content marketing isn’t the be-all and end-all. It isn’t a panacea. But it is a proven method of delivering results in the modern M&A diaspora, and one of its biggest plus points is that it can, when done just right, build a comms platform that doesn’t cost you anything aside from production and distribution spend.

And if a content marketer says you need content when you don’t, they’re a dick.

Great points, Nick Eggleton.

Hi Sarah

I get it. It being the value of content.

But ’content marketing strategist’ is the problem.

I think of it like a marketing strategist is someone that designs and builds a house. He uses tradies.

You need brickies, plasterers, carpenters, sparks, plumbers, decorators, landscape gardeners etc to execute the plan. He doesn’t need a plumbing strategy.

A plumbing strategy without a house would just be pipes moving water around.

I agree, any message needs to be said, if the message is important then invest in it. A great message needs to be heard.

But if you pay for it to be read / seen it’s ‘advertising’, if it’s endorsed by appearing on someone else’s media property it’s PR, if it’s in your EDM it’s direct marketing, and if it’s on your website it’s ‘collateral’.

Consumer behaviour might be changing, Ad blocking isn’t new. TIVO has been around for 20 years.

Product placement is just that, it’s not content marketing, but it cleverly makes the ‘unfamiliar familiar’ and vice versa – which is the nub of all marketing communications.

Sponsored / Branded entertainment isn’t new, without ’Soap’ companies sponsoring ‘radio series commercial radio would never have flourished.

Craig, you’ve lost me.

If content marketing ‘isn’t a tactic’, ‘it isn’t just part of a comms plan’, ‘it isn’t even content strategy’, ’it’s a ‘a clearly defined approach’ that’s ‘evidently nearly universally misunderstood’…

… then ‘it’ isn’t ‘marketing’ itself very well.

All marketing can claim to be ‘data-driven’, most marketing comms is ‘digitally assigned’.

Banner blindness is a great term, but for all the decrying ‘click through rates’ falling, when was the last time some one asked what the click through rate of a billboard was, or a TV ad, or a print ad.

Marketing isn’t always measurable.

You’ve heard the expression “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

I didn’t say ‘content marketing is just content production. I inferred that successful marketing communications requires a message delivered through a medium, paid, earned or owned.

And I’m not sure Sarah did make it explicitly clear.

The thrust of what I got from the article – which I wholeheartedly agree – is that great quality messages (or content), valued by a present or future audience is an asset that will reap rewards and publishing, promoting or paying to be seen, is valuable. It ‘can’ generate awareness, interest, desire and action.

But the bit I have trouble with is the panacea. Because the title, provocatively intended or not, does claim it is.

NB you use the term M&A here and earlier, I assume as an abbreviation of ‘marketing and advertising’. I repeat, Marketing > Marketing communications.

Advertising is a promotional tactic that is an element of marketing and not separate to it.

It’s like saying English Breakfast & Sausages. You can have an English without sausages, but sausages do not an English breakfast make.

You can have a marketing strategy without content marketing. Content marketing is not marketing strategy.

I think we’re having parallel conversations Nick – by which I mean our lines aren’t meeting.

Your very first statement, “I get it. It being the value of content.” kinda suggests you don’t get it.

Content =/= content marketing. We weren’t talking about the value of content. We were talking about the value of content marketing. Which is a strategic approach wherein one builds an owned audience, with the end goal of harnessing it to drive some kind of positive business objective.

I’ll concede that content marketing isn’t well understood as a concept, but this isn’t because it isn’t marketing itself well enough. The information’s out there.

I think the real issue is that the majority of “marketers” think they know what it means, and attribute their own meaning to it without ever actually bothering to look it up.

Your observation about not all marketing being measurable is also a good one. The beauty of owning the media and building your own audience is that you have all that data at your fingertips. It isn’t being mashed into vague, multiple-zero numbers and used against you to milk you of your budget.

This is where, in many cases, the business case for content marketing is made. Owning an asset is better than renting it (usually).

Successful marketing communications is about setting an objective and meeting or exceeding it, and being able to show a positive outcome – a return on your spend. (Notice I didn’t say “return on investment” – the only case in which it’s an investment is if it’s an appreciating asset, a la content marketing).

I get a bit lost in your analogies with plumbers and sausages, but I don’t think anyone here is disagreeing with the notion that marketing in general is a good way of achieving an objective.

Just to reiterate: content does not equal content marketing. Content marketing isn’t mutually exclusive from any other strategic approach or tactic that you might want to engage in. It’s simply a useful term used to describe the act of building an audience of your own, in order to deliver them value (and reap it in kind). But it is unique in that it can become an asset that pays for itself, rather than being an expense.

I’ll refer you to this website for further reading. It’s awesome. http://contentmarketinginstitu.....marketing/

Phil, thanks for pointing out that Campaign article, love the lorry analogy, brilliant!
“…But the important thing was the idea”.

Sarah, thanks for kicking off good debate with your article.

@Todd, Thanks! I think this proves we still need to have a lot more conversation around content marketing and how it fits into an overall business strategy.