Content Marketing: a not-so-new way of thinking

Ask 100 people in the marketing world today about Content Marketing and you’ll get 101 different answers. It’s one of the most popular and, at the same time, ill-defined terms around. Why?

I believe Content Marketing is more of a philosophy than a specific tactic or strategy and I’ll tell you why — it’s because of how we got here. What created Content Marketing was a confluence of three different but related technological advances:

1.     The advent of technology that allows consumers to avoid marketing messages like never before, such as DVR technology, satellite radio and streaming video

2.     Other technology that allows a brand to become a publisher of its own messages without the need for traditional media; this includes web technology and Social Media

3.     And, finally, technology that connects consumers more than ever, including smartphones, blogging and the increasing importance of consumer reviews

The first change probably seems obvious, but we can’t underestimate how this has changed the ways brands are spending their marketing dollars. While the TV commercial isn’t dead yet, except for things that have to be seen live (like concerts and sporting events) it may be on life support. Individual consumers are now in charge of their own TV programming schedules and can — and do — skip commercials at will.

The second point may be less obvious, simply because it’s been a more gradual change. Companies have operated websites for more than a decade and Social Media, while newer, has been around a while, too. But companies are now turning to these new(er) media as a way of directly and efficiently communicating with their target audiences without the need of an intermediary like television or newspapers.

The third change is less about technology and more about what people are doing with it. Today’s mobile-enabled consumers are ever-connected; with each other, with the brands they prefer and with the world at large. With blogging, anyone who wants to can at least try to be an expert about something...essentially for free. And nearly all of us have the world’s information right in the palm of our hands. Brands have to deal with these new dynamics everyday.

Enter Content Marketing.

As brands look for ways to deal with all of these changes, they have an opportunity to think differently about how they send messages to consumers. Quickly leaving are the days when a brand pushed its messages at consumers. They must now talk with them. This is the essence of Content Marketing. It doesn’t have to be digital (although most communication today is) and it doesn’t have to be high production value like traditional TV spots (although video will continue to be prominent).

In fact, Content Marketing as a philosophy has been around for hundreds of years. The idea of giving consumers the information they want in exchange for loyalty existed in the 18^th century when Benjamin Franklin promoted his print shop — not by offering discounts on printing or even talking about printing at all, but by giving people the information they wanted, like astrology and weather predictions…in Poor Richard’s Almanac.

Content Marketing isn’t a specific tactic like blogging or email. And it isn’t some esoteric strategy only the experts can understand. It’s the idea that people will listen to you and may — may — do business with you if you help them.

Now, isn’t that something worth doing…and doing well?