I don’t often talk about the content marketing side of my
consulting business here on my blog. For
those of you who are unfamiliar, content strategy is a powerful business tool
and content marketing is potentially the future of marketing in a variety of
ways.
The basic idea of content is not new. Write content so that it gives users
something that they need, written in a way that they can use, at the right
time, in the right place, on the right medium.
For those of us in user experience, this is pretty straightforward. But
using it in marketing is still controversial, despite the fact that it has been
growing steadily over the past 10 years or so.
Think about the standard advertisement. It promotes a product or service, telling you
about its features, its strengths, its price --- perhaps offering a discount or
a slogan or a pitch --- perhaps using social proof to tell you how many other
people use it --- and so on. On the
other hand, content marketing would give you information that is useful whether you
purchase that particular product or not.
How to decide whether to get an iOS or Android smartphone, whether you
get the Galaxy or not. How to decide
whether to buy organic apples or not, whether you shop at Wholefoods or
not.
There are some classics that are powerful examples.
Scrivener’s published a magazine over 100 years ago that highlighted engaging articles
about famous authors like Hemmingway.
They happened to be a book publisher and if you purchased a Hemmingway
book they would make some money. But the magazine was great whether you bought
the book or not. Kraft offers recipe
books that just happen to note when you can use Kraft cheddar or Italian dressing,
but you don’t have to and the recipes still work.
A newer movement in this space is to partner with serious
journalists to create very high quality content. Time Magazine and the New York Times have new
divisions where they will assign journalists to work with clients to write
advertorial sections such as Exxon Mobile on clean energy or Norton on computer
security.
In Chief Content Officer magazine last month, Joe Pulizzi
(who is one of the best thought leaders in content marketing) wrote an
editorial with an interesting speculation. At the moment, Apple and Microsoft
and many other tech companies have more spare cash on hand than the entire
market cap of the New York Times. Jeff
Bezos just personally bought the Washington Post. So why not just cut out the middle man? Why doesn’t Apple recreate the New York
Times, with high quality, hard hitting, investigative reporting, but as brand
journalism rather than a newspaper? Red
Bull’s YouTube video channel becomes a real TV network. Kraft’s food magazine
becomes the next Gourmet magazine.
Marriott’s travel and tourism web site becomes the next Orbitz.
What do you think? Would these media have the credibility of Time magazine, the Food Network, or Conde Nast?
