Content marketing is nothing new. A good example of good content marketing done well is John Deere’s The Furrow magazine, which has been around since 1887. Here in New Zealand, Air New Zealand’s Kia Ora magazine is a good highend example, as was the newsletter that Hubbards Foods enclosed in their cereal boxes.
Today however, most content marketing happens online, but that’s not to say content marketing is exclusively associated with digital media. Good content may be published online, or in printed magazines, books, newsletters – even CDs and USB sticks. The channel and the form (e.g. video or article) do not define good content marketing, that’s the job of the content itself.
Content marketing may be defined as creating interesting content that adds value to your target audiences in a form they prefer, across channels they frequent or are exposed to.
Where most companies fail is that they create content that is either irrelevant, boring or of no interest to the target audiences because they have failed to understand that their audiences are not necessarily as enamoured with who they are and what they do as they are.
Let’s break that down a bit…
1. …Interesting and adds value… In other words, it should:
a) Be relevant
b) Inform or educate or entertain
c) Trigger an emotional reaction
d) Be objective and honest
Exactly how you do that will be explored later in this eBook.
2. …In a form they prefer…
We all process information in different ways. Some of us are more visual, while others are more tactile or auditory orientated, so by form we’re talking about the form in which you present information. For example:
• Video
• Articles
• Diagrams and infographics
• Photographs
3. …Across channels your target audiences frequent or are exposed to…
Content marketing does not just apply to digital and we should be careful not to become so obsessed with digital that we neglect other equally effective channels. Very often an effective content marketing campaign uses a mix of channels and platforms, including:
• Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
• Newsletters
• Print magazines like ‘The Furrow’ and ‘Red Bull Bulletin’
• Mainstream media sites like ‘The New Zealand Herald’ and ‘Stuff’
• Digital magazines
• Google Adwords
• Blogs
• Microsites
• Educational seminars and business breakfasts
We’ve looked at what content marketing is, but what makes it good?
Several years ago, so the story goes, a television presenter for an open university sociology programme was talking to a female production-line worker in a biscuit factory. The dialogue went like this:
Interviewer: How long have you worked here?
Production Lady: Since I left school (probably about 15 years).
Interviewer: What do you do?
Production Lady: I take packets of biscuits off the conveyor belt and put them into cardboard boxes.
Interviewer: Have you always done the same job?
Production Lady: Yes.
Interviewer: Do you enjoy it?
Production Lady: Oooh Yes, it’s great, everyone is so nice and friendly, we have a good laugh.
Interviewer (with a hint of disbelief): Really? Don’t you find it a bit boring?
Production Lady: Oh no, sometimes they change the biscuits…
The lesson us marketers can take from this little anecdote is “don’t assume that the things that motivate you will motivate someone else”. Your audience is the ‘end’ and all good content meets the needs, interests, questions, problems, issues and opportunities of your audience.
Next page… Chapter 2: Why do we need to take content marketing seriously?