A Corporate Media Checklist…Content Marketing On the Rise

Jeremiah Owyang, Sr. Analyst and Forrester Research, provides this excellent starter checklist for launching a corporate media strategy. Jeremiah hits on a few of the key points that we’ve been preaching for a while, including:

• All companies are media companies. He uses a quote from
  Dan Scheinman, a VP at Cisco, who stated, “All companies are media companies, they just don’t know it yet.”
• Outsourcing is Key. Man, I love this post by Jeremiah. I’ve always been a huge believer in outsourcing content initiatives. Why? For the most part, organizations are set up to sell products and services, not to communicate and publish a consistent message. That’s where the experts come in. Also, internal pipelines and resources (communications and eMedia) are often challenging to deal with (or nonexistent). Work with an outside provider who adheres to your production schedule.
• Media is not channel specific. When you are considering launching a content marketing initiative, you can not be limited by a certain set of channels (no matter what you think about your audience). Key here is, don’t think, know your audience. Then, meet that audience with valuable information where they are at.

I made a few additional comments to Jeremiah’s post, which I’m including here.  For the most part, he hit the nail on the head…but I felt the need to add a few key items.

• Pinpoint the buyer persona you are after. This could be done by setting up listening posts (feedback loops) throughout your current media, or by conducting some research. Before any content marketing initiative launches, the business must have a very good idea of the informational needs of the buyer (If not, wait or don’t do it).
• The content must be consistently delivered and not a one off. So many companies are looking for that big viral hit, but what works most often is delivering consistently valuable information to buyers, which is available through a variety of channels.
• There is a distinct difference between what I call sales collateral and content marketing (corporate media). Product demos and feature-driven content should be considered sales collateral. Content marketing is information that makes your buyer more intelligent. If that’s done, then you have a content formula for success that will drive business growth.

Of course, those of you that have been reading this blog know that this industry is huge, but recognition and organization of these activities are still in the early adopter state. What has been really interesting over the past couple months is to see the growing amount of blog and keyword activity around content marketing. Just take a look at this three-month trend line for “content marketing” in IceRocket. Definitely seeing this catching on in the marketing community. Exciting stuff!

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Related Articles:

• 42 Content-Building Ways to Attract and Retain Buyers
• 16 Questions to Ask Before Launching a Content Marketing Project
• Stop Shouting Features: 5 Tips To Create a Knowledge Marketing Program
• 4 Content Marketing Essentials for Every Business

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