Junta42 blog: eMarketer CEO: Turning Ads to Content Most Important Transformation for 2008

Okay...there is really something going on here. If you are a marketing professional, it's time to pay serious attention to content marketing (custom publishing new). From new marketing thought leader Seth Godin, to now eMarketer founder and CEO Geoff Ramsey, marketing has changed for good and there is no turning back to the old model.

Mr. Ramsey includes three hidden trends in his latest post, concluding with the third trend as having the most important transformation on marketing.

What Mr. Ramsey states is a perfect representation of what is going on in today's marketing. It also shows that there is a significant opportunity for businesses to take advantage of this trend. He states:

"...For decades, the ad industry was built on the interruption-disruption model. Consumers understood that if they wanted to experience free content—in the form of television shows, music on the radio and magazine articles—they would have to put up with ads, most of which were perceived as irrelevant, boring, annoying or all three. In this standard construct, ads were seen as a “necessary evil” to support the content consumers really wanted to see.

But the interruption-disruption model is dying out, thanks to shifting consumer trends. Consumers are increasingly in control of their media content and can easily eradicate ads they don’t want to see. They also have less trust in advertisers and their messages."

Key points here:

The standard interruption model is slowing dying and someday will cease to exist.
Customers are in complete control of the media they engage in.
Customers inherently distrust advertisers, regardless of size or brand.

Ramsey goes on to state:

"As a result, advertisers and their agencies who want to engage with today’s consumers will have to start turning their ads into content. Ultimately, they will need to be able to produce content that is so compelling, relevant and entertaining that consumers will seek it out and want to share it with others. The new ad model is about creating great content and finding clever ways to embed it in the fabric of communities and content platforms where consumers are hanging out and actively participating."

Amen brother! Ramsey's last paragraph is essentially what we call content marketing.

Today's buying environment, and into the future, creates a number of opportunities for businesses, as well as threats to those who aren't willing to alter their marketing.

Businesses cannot speak "at" customers, but must engage in a dialogue that connects customers with the brand.
Trust is built through communication (like marriage). Since customers are set up to distrust you, no matter who you are, valuable and relevant content and communications that help them feel better about themselves or perform better in the world will generate the trust you need to sell products and services.
Content should be the backbone of your entire marketing plan. You should be sending a message to your customers that helps them, even if they don't buy a product from you. You can still disseminate this message through traditional marketing, but lead your customers to the content water.
There is a clear opportunity for content providers that can help companies communicate better with their customers. As we've discussed many times, businesses are not set up to create consistent and ongoing content, they are set up to sell products and services. That's where partnering with an expert content provider or custom publisher can really make all the difference.

Technology has evened the playing field. It may actually be easier for smaller businesses without historical marketing baggage to take advantage of this opportunity. For example, a small business can launch a blog, a white paper series, an eBook, an eNewsletter and a content-based microsite for literally pennies. The majority of technology used to distribute this content is free. As Seth Godin discussed in his latest book tour call, this revolution may be the biggest revolution the business environment has ever seen. Larger marketing organizations have a more difficult time letting go to old programs, especially since egos are involved, and those egos usually don't like to admit that they are or were wrong.

I actually thought that the content marketing revolution was still a few years off. After the last few weeks, I'm beginning to think that we are right in the middle of it. What an opportunity!

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