What does the demise of Content Marketing World Sydney tell us about the industry?
In this opinion piece Matt Rowley argues publishers need to wrest control of content marketing from agencies and consultants.
Last week the Content Marketing Institute announced, via email, that there would be no Content Marketing World Sydney next year. Pulling the plug on an event in the hottest marketing trend would seem a little strange, especially after running three of them.
But there’s good reason – content marketing is changing. Many have had a chance to try on the Emperor’s new clothes and the draught is noticeable.
Like most hot internet trends, digital content marketing is fuelled by the promise of money for nothing; stop paying for media, make your own for free. You can be a brand publisher as publishing on the internet after all, costs pretty much nothing.
Until you try it.
In my experience companies of size moving into content marketing have found a couple of things.
First – making content, especially content that people give a damn about, isn’t cheap or easy. There are reasons why publishers have been bleeding and if you’re stepping into the content game, you’re stepping into their world. Worse though, unlike in publishing, for a brand publisher there are no other clients to share the financial burden with.
Second – that pricey content is about to become a whole lot more expensive if no-one sees it. This is the impasse that many marketers I know have come to – they’ve created their digital assets and filled them with content, but they don’t have a genuinely engaged audience – by that I mean one that will come back for more.
Building a sustainable a digital audience is a long game; Buzzfeed started in 2006, Business Insider in 2009 (Mumbrella in 2008!). Even with far less lofty goals and a stack of cash tipped into paid social media, it just takes time – probably upwards of 18 months to get to a decent size, regardless of whether you’re going broad in consumer or niche in B2B. This requires an unusually patient management team who at best prefer work on yearly (more likely quarterly) cycles.
It turns out that by tackling these two multi-headed hydras, brands end up taking on exactly what publishers have been struggling with for about a decade – except that publishing isn’t a brand’s core business.
This is why content marketing is hitting a turning point. The proposition is still as compelling – engaging a digital hungry ad-dodging audience with content – it’s just clear you need to pay someone with an audience to do it for you.
Publishers (of which I’m one) with their content production and audiences on tap should be cleaning up. However, up to what turned out to be the last Content Marketing World Sydney this year, the running has been made by consultants, content agencies and distribution platforms (like Outbrain) who together have worked to replicate what a publishers should be offering. For whatever reason though, this was clearly not enough to sustain the event.
The next phase of the digital content marketing journey will therefore be fascinating. Can publishers overcome their internal hurdles and competitive mania to create an accessible marketplace for clients, or will the next shiny marketing object fill the void?
Either way there’ll be no Content Marketing World in Sydney next year to talk about it.
- Matt Rowley is director of content marketing for Cirrus Media
Unrealistic expectations is the biggest issue. All of the success stories are based on sustained efforts for more than a year (18 months or more in many cases). Unfortunately, marketers are under pressure to show results every quarter.
We’ll see more brands renting (and in some cases buying) audiences from publishers but patience and developing a real strategy will be key to content marketing success.
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GO YOU MIGHTY WALLABIES!!
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The clues could be in the name. Content Marketing is marketing of something using content. Content is the vehicle, the thing that’s being sold is the payload. As soon people (warning assertion or assumption not based on empirical evidence follows) sense that they are being sold at, the vehicle is seen as suspect. This whether or not the content is clearly signposted as a marketing vehicle.
Basically, content marketing means compromised content. And when we are awash with too much content, the easiest and most rational thing to do when you stumble upon or have marketing compromised content thrust upon is to discard … perhaps with negative feelings about the brand. It be good to see some decent research that either debunks all of the above assumptions, validates them or something in between.
I wonder who we could get to sponsor it … :@}
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FFS content marketing does not automatically mean compromised content. There are countless examples here and abroad of successful content marketing, where brands have created quality content that delivers real value to customers and consumers. In the process of meeting the customers needs, they influence action, whether it be impacting brand preference or influencing a purchase decision. If done authentically and with integrity, it can be a win win for brand and customer.
To Matt’s point, this is more often than not through collaboration with people who really understand content, like Publishers.
What has muddied the water is poor quality content (or advertising dressed up as content) that gives little consideration to the needs and pain points of the customer.
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Nice article.
From someone old enough to remember the effectiveness of the previous incarnation ‘contract publishing’ (now in resurgence) I’m amazed that ContentMarketingSydney lasted as long as it did.
There are some great examples of great content being used by smart businesses with long-term investment (in-house) but far too many impatient, troubled, cheap, and inexperienced businesses looking for silver bullets, shortcuts and unicorns (or whatever ‘hens teeth are called these days).
There will always be ambulance chasers. People that are ill principled enough to look for a ‘Mark’ to squeeze an invisible suit from. In a digital world, with the measurement and accountability imbued in marketing, fads won’t last.
What is sustainable is hard. Innovation, in product and service, and marketing are the only way to create competitive advantage. It’s effortful.
Great content, that lasts, is an effort.
Building or mining an existing audience is a marathon not a sprint.
Both ends require energy, dedication, perspiration and persistence.
Not values you’ll find in many businesses.
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“Like most hot internet trends” ‘Hot’ according to who? From where I am sitting the old guard is trying to reinvent itself and frantucally attempting to retain some revenues.
“There are reasons why publishers have been bleeding”. Too right. Have you seen how thin most print magazines are these days. As for engagement on digital platforms (of the old guard publishers brands), it is awful. Cirrus Media’s Facebook page is a great example. What on earth is that all about!?
In the B2B place experts are key. A doctor can network with peers online, so can an architect or a lawyer. The social networks and peer to peer is the model. 3rd party publishers are in death throws. Why was a ‘content marketing’ event cancelled? Oh please; stop it!
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Surely if you are actually a journalust you’d do some basic reporting and ring them up and ask them why they’ve pulled the event. Concluding that they have done so because all Australian marketers have abandoned their content marketing on owned platforms and are running into the arms of publishers to fix everything for them seems like self serving BS to me
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Hi Matt…it’s been a long time. Was interesting to see this article pop up from you.
Just wanted to comment on why we decided not to produce Content Marketing World Sydney in 2016. Simply put, as a North American company, it was much more expensive to produce the kind of quality of event we wanted to in Sydney. Also, by making this decision, we’ve been able to focus on growing Content Marketing World in Cleveland (which will have its biggest year this year), as well as our new event in Las Vegas, Intelligent Content Conference (which we do in replace of CMW Sydney).
We loved Sydney, but this decision is more about us and our business decisions than the industry. You are correct about brands needing patience and some are struggling with content marketing, but the potential for content marketing success has never been greater. We are still at the very beginning of this process.
I just want to make sure that this decision should say nothing about this fast growing industry of content marketing. We will continue to produce our content marketing research for Asia Pacific as we have done for the last four years.
Thanks again for all your support.
Joe Pulizzi
Founder, Content Marketing Institute
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There’s great misunderstanding about the function of content marketing by many marketers.
We consume content because we want to learn something, to solve a problem or to be entertained. Many marketers still use content to smuggle sales pitches to us. We can spot it a mile off and we don’t like it.
Content marketing is a facet of relationship marketing. It takes time to build a relationship and success must be measured accordingly. And, certainly, there’s no point creating expensive content if no one is seeing it – or is interested in it. So, brands need to build communities and build them around their corporate values rather than around their products. A higher purpose to which we, as consumers, can identify with and want to participate in conversation about both with the brand and with each other.
This starts with brands listening to the conversations swirling around it both on the social web and in traditional media and then responding accordingly.
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@Advertorial is old hat – type “Content Marketing” into Google Trends (Or just read Mumbrella regularly) and you’ll see whether it’s hot or not.
The Cirrus Media website isn’t our focus, our Mastheads where our audiences are.
You’re right about experts in B2B – which is why our mastheads are full of them, and very popular.
@Journo – no, I’m not an actual journalist. But as the owner of the event – Joe Pulizzi – answered below your comment, it was a commercial decision. Anyone will tell you that this year’s wasn’t as well supported/attended as last. I’ve put forward my thinking why.
@Joe – thanks for taking the time to answer. You guys put on a great event. In the end I disagree with the assertion that a brand needs to build or own its audience and I believe that misconception is making it harder for brands to see success with CM. If Content Marketing is healthy, it would be healthier without this constraint.
@ScottGuthrie – “So, brands need to build communities”. Why?
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content marketing sydney 2014 = social media sydney 2011 = seo sydney 2007
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@ Matt Rowley.
Content marketing is a buzzword. On Mumbrella I often see opinion pieces being penned by people with ‘content marketing’ agendas; for sure!
As for the argument that a third party should own content marketing, versus the brand itself; I think that is a little rich when it is being said by a 3rd party publisher.
Publishing has and is continuing to change. Traditional publishing businesses are trying to adapt.
– Printed newspapers have lost their audience.
– Look at the the Yellow Pages now selling Google Adwords.
Social networks are gobbling up this audience and it is getting more and more fragmented. B2B publishers are trying to keep up and are striving to offer value to professionals, who today can network, share and engage on social platforms with their peers and with brands directly. Brands are seeing the ability to own certain pieces and engage their target markets directly.
I imagine that Cirrus is battling a similar fight to The Yellow Pages offering ‘content marketing’ today. Again, as YingDings points out, re SEO and Social Media yesterday: what will it be in 2 years time?
My prediction for ‘Content marketing’ on Google Trends will be a similar curve to that of MySpace’s: https://www.google.com.au/trends/explore#q=Myspace
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@matt – if you don’t understand why brands need to build communities you shouldn’t be commentating on this matter at all. Subtle hint – amazon…
Overall thought I don’t get the point of this article. Content, as defined by the dictionary, ‘is the material dealt with in a speech, literary work, etc. as distinct from its form or style’ OR it’s a content page OR it’s information. So what we are really dealing with is a load of made up stuff that we pleasantly describe as ‘content’ to make it sound sexier than advertising or communication or direct response or advertorial or bumpf or any other word you want to put to it.
Why we need sub- classification of sub-classifications is beyond me – the channel is the real issue we should be focussing on and anything that goes in that channel is content and that content needs a tone, style, direction voice and feeling that represents the brand it is advertising…..nothing new here other than new words to make some people feel special.
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My point Matt is it’s a very long (and self serving) bow to draw. The evidence is just not there so this is neither rigorously reported piece nor is it a credible argument
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@Matt: Brands need to build communities because firms today have to become truly customer-centric. Not only in name but in action.
Engagement between a firm and its publics must be purposeful and it must evolve. Firms must build on the info and knowledge learned from these engagement exchanges with their pubics so they can solve customer problems, answer their questions and constantly check that they’re providing the best strategic fit – so pushing the dialogue further and maintaining consumer interest.
In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace it’s not enough for customers to be satisfied by brands. They need to be engaged by them That’s why brands build relationships with them. To form a bond of loyalty – with the business objective of driving profitable customer action.
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@Advertorial – Me saying publishers have a strong case to deliver content marketing is as rich as agencies, consultants and content platforms saying brands should do it themselves. Does me saying it make it less true? That’s for the reader to decide.
I agree with you that publishing is changing. But I think you might have the misconception that publishers are companies who own printing presses, when the good ones are companies who own audiences because they know how to engage them – wherever they are. Have a look at the organic reach publishers can attain on Facebook vs brands for example.
And content marketing has been around for over 100 years and will be here after the hype on this cycle subsides.
@Journo – could be why this is filed under ‘opinion’
@Scott – I agree with you that brands need to engage, but not that brands need to build those communities (outside of the pre-requisite brand social channels).
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@scott – get your point but consumers really don’t want any of that, they put up with it to get a need fulfilled. Think of your own buying scenarios.
The truth is, brands are an implicit contract, in return for a dependable experience/product/outcome the consumer will give you loyalty as you save them looking around for other products every time they need to buy something.
Marketing is the way of reminding them
Distribution is where they get it
Online simply gives more channels to communicate through
The industry is confused and needs to create classifications to understand what’s happening
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“But I think you might have the misconception that publishers are companies who own printing presses, when the good ones are companies who own audiences because they know how to engage them – wherever they are. Have a look at the organic reach publishers can attain on Facebook vs brands for example.”
Reach, delivery, engagement, interaction, value and more = owning an audience.
I just looked at 3 of your mast heads and there is little to no engagement, on your sites (comments) or on Facebook (as an example below). Perhaps Facebook is not the medium for B2B?
https://www.facebook.com/FerretAustralia
https://www.facebook.com/franchisingau
https://www.facebook.com/archanddesign
I am not saying that there isn’t a place for advertorials but who wants to read a newspaper written by the advertisers? Great publishers understand the line and will make sure that advertising is weighted with quality editorial. Audiences will grow and engage based on being communicated to, consulted and ultimately cared for. If you care for an audience you will be valuable in their community.
It is tough for the old school. Only time will tell where old school models will go and whether advertorials is the new approach. I believe that nothing has changed in terms of the audiences desire for quality content and to not be sold to at every given juncture.
‘Whats in it for me’? This question is being asked by your audiences: give them what they want.
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@matt
Content marketing is a great idea – too bad its left to marketing dweebs who like to use language and syntax that only a computer could understand / love – (sub-optimal or pushing the envelope, anyone?). Companies will soon figure out that readers don’t want to be spoken to as if they are in some Ad for shampoo or dog food and will hitch onto the next new thing that Google is pushing. Publishers should be owning content marketing and not shiny, glossy agencies staffed by 22-year olds who wouldn’t know where to stick an apostrophe if their life depended on it. But in this upside down world, publishers with all their resources, trained journos and staff and decades of experience can only watch from the sidelines as they are outwitted by smaller, younger and more nimble companies that are selling content marketing as if they actually knew all about it. Its not that the agencies are so good- its just that publishers are too old, greedy or lazy to take it seriously – until about 5 minutes ago. With the right staff and dare i say funding, Cirrus Media, with its many highly experienced journos where you work should be owning most of the content marketing being generated. However it is not and the work goes to agencies that honestly, I don’t know how they even make a buck. It’s a crazy world out there that will get even crazier me thinks.
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Joe Pullizi’s comment at #8 ended this discussion.
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As an industry, we are still squabbling with regards to ownership.
It reminds me of when creatives, digital agencies, PR and media agencies were/are at each others throats arguing over Social.
I’m surprised is been pulled. But then again, I never once heard of it.
From the guys at MediaSocial.net – I hear its tough running Sydney based events anyway… Haters gonna hate!
Perhaps it was simply ran by the wrong ‘people’ or had the wrong awareness strategy?
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Most brands seem to be flying team members overseas for conferences in comparison to sending teams locally for events. It can come down to cost/experience Australian events $1500-$2000 where the US ones are $500 or lower in some cases + hotel + flight tho aud isn’t great atm. When you attend US confrences and then Attend an Australian event it’s evident that the content is 1-2 years old for Australian Audiences. I’ve seen many digital events pop up over the last 10 years and never return.
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Woah!.. I’ve just checked one of my old titles FEN (aka Factory Equipment News) and a strong masthead back in the day…I thought I’d go first hand and have a sniff at “Content Marketing”, back in the day we have rehashed press releases and if we sold enough Ad’s we rehashed more ect ect – then the internet came along…
http://www.myfen.com.au/home
Go have a look at what content marketing does to a great traditional B2B masthead…
The web site is truly to behold ….Well done Cirus
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I had a few free hours over the weekend and decided to get “me head” around content marketing as it relates to Niche B2B media… Woah!, utter garbage and I say this with expertise….. It’s a crime how business owners are basically getting ripped off by these Content Marketing companies….. Could be a business in an Agency or Publishing Company that can produce hard leads for their efforts….
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Sydney-based, King Content, just sold today to iSentia for $48 million.
The largest content marketing deal in the country. https://mumbrella.com.au/isentia-buys-content-marketing-agency-king-content-in-mammoth-48m-deal-313592
I think that says a fair bit about the content marketing industry in Australia.
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@The future is Content
The people behind King Content are fantastic. Hearing Todd Wheatland speak recently certainly confirmed that to me.
Comparing King Content to Cirrus Media is comparing apples and oranges. One is a chiseled, dynamic, innovative company. The other is a b2b publisher trying to find a way to salvage revenues.
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Dear “Advertorial is old Hat”, Cirrus maybe a b2b publisher trying to salvage revenues, let’s not knock them….It would be a sadder landscape without them – I believe that they do have some sparks within …. They won’t be the 90 million entity of yesterday, but their mastheads are solid…
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Not knocking the good folks at Cirrus at all. King is an agency. King doesn’t own any mastheads? Cirrus is a publisher and owns mastheads.
It is tough for publishers, because reach has gone global and of course has diversified. If Cirrus’ readers / users see / get value, then there should be a model. it just isn’t as fat profit wise as it was back in the good old days. Cirrus (RBI) back in the day would have had the most amazing ‘little black books’ of readers, subscribers and advertisers. If you are a good networker you can Linkin with these folks and go direct. Changing times.
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