Q&A with Content Marketing Company Eat Media

I recently had the opportunity to interview Ian Alexander from Eat Media, a content marketing company with offices in New York and Florida.  Ian, a co-founder, serves as Vice President, Content Management, and launched the company with Britta Alexander who services as President, Editorial Management. Here are the highlights.

Joe Pulizzi, Junta42: Ian, can you briefly describe how you got started in this business and what Eat Media does?

Ian Alexander, Eat Media: We got into content marketing because we recognized a need. I came from the dot-com world where teams would spend months cutting co-branding deals and business partnerships that involved collateral or websites full of words, yet the content was always being done at the last minute. I finally asked one of the marketing directors why they didn’t bring in freelancer writers early on. He said, ”It’s too much work to manage writers and I thought I’d have the time to write it before the launch, but I didn’t.” The light bulb went off right then—marketing departments don’t have time to manage writers, especially when the writing goes beyond your typical marketing collateral and into the less familiar zone of editorial. My partner comes from an advertising and publishing background so the editorial aspect was second nature to her. We both had a number of consistent freelance clients and when a company approached us to manage their corporate magazine, the business was launched.

Eat Media is a content management house that acts as a Managing Editor for companies with editorial-style online and print needs. We create editorial calendars, hire the writers, edit the stories and work with print and web design teams to translate words to photo-filled pages. In some cases, we work with our clients’ writers, and in other cases, we bring in our own. In short, we make content happen and align it with our client’s other marketing initiatives.

Junta42: What have you seen as the most significant changes going on in the industry that has enabled more organizations to use your services?

Eat Media:  Three things. First, I think the pressure placed on marketing teams to deliver results across so many mediums has stretched organizations thin, and in some cases, taken them away from their core competencies. Direct mail, social networking, corporate websites, corporate blogs, straight advertising, co-branding deals, trade show tchockies and the transition from internal printed newsletters to corporate magazines—that’s a lot to manage. And there are two sides to it, the Biz-Dev side and the Marketing side, so you have the rush to deliver the product or service and you have the opportunity to position your brand, but if any piece of your content is poorly written, it chips away at your company’s credibility.

We enter into the mix and say, “You guys work on the deal—we’ll make sure the message gets delivered.” That message might be in a corporate magazine or online interviews with industry experts. In our experience, the ideas are there, they just need execution and polish.

Second, the concept of outsourcing went from an over-hyped/under-performing fad to a viable source of savings in both time and money. We can step into a meeting today and say to a business, “I can create more quality content for your business in a greater quantity than you can because that’s all we focus on.” I think businesses understand outsourcing and react more favorably to it than, say, five years ago.

Third, it’s about the reality of being Googled forever. As a company, you are going to be Googled from here on out. So very simply, whatever content your produce for your company is what gets returned during a search. It can be informative, smart and trust-building or unclear, self-promoting and transparent.

Junta42: Content marketing isn't easy to understand.  Many marketers are just getting the hang of it.  How do you communicate the benefit of your services so that marketers understand why they should hire you?

Eat Media:  First off, I always tell prospective clients, “You could do what we do, the question is do you want to do it, and what else could you be doing with that time?” When we are communicating the benefits of our content marketing services to a client, we want them to look at Eat Media as an extension of their marketing team, and as a way for their company to execute more quickly and thoroughly on content. Once you add up the time it takes to find the writers, write the assignment briefs, line up interviews, respond to questions, maintain style guides, not to mention a round or two of substantive editing, getting sign-off from stakeholders and working with the design team on art direction and execution, it becomes very apparent that it would be more efficient to have us manage their corporate content.

Junta42: How do you think your business model will change in the future?

Eat Media:  Internally, we talk about this a lot. I think you have to because the landscape changes so quickly. I believe that we will become more of a “content agency” as we move forward. More and more clients are looking to us to find writers who specialize in very specific areas, from foreign exchange markets to single parenting or large enterprise software solutions for organic farmers. I think content will become more specialized and less lifestyle/business/entertainment focused because clients are trying to brand themselves into smaller and more defined segments than ever before. In the future, we’ll probably have to focus on SEO more than we do now because content has to be held accountable for meeting goals. I also think the demand for us to manage design as well as content will increase—we are already seeing that with some clients.

Junta42: Do you think that marketers are starting to "get" that they need to distribute valuable and ongoing information to their customers and prospects?

Eat Media:  I think the early adopters hear the call loud and clear that content equals trust and trust equal sales. The Sisyphus factor is how much content does it take to get the top of the hill, how much is it going to cost and what is the ROI.

Junta42: What are the biggest obstacles to selling your services?

Eat Media: I’d say the biggest obstacle we come up against is whether or not a company should hire us or bring in a full-time editor. The benefit to working with us is we’re a company, not just one person, and we come with backgrounds in advertising, marketing, high-tech and publishing. We’ve been professional writers and editors, and to hire us means capitalizing on all that experience, not to mention our network of writers and their experience. Also, when you look at employee turnover, bringing someone in-house isn’t necessarily going to have the long-term benefits you’re hoping for. Once we’re brought into a project, our clients begin to regard us as part of their team. There’s a high level of trust, and a couple of them really just want to be “cc’d” at this point. Plus, we’re not going to take up office space playing Snood while we search for the perfect adjective. But still, sometimes clients opt for the full-time employee. We’re hoping to get a call from them in a year or so…

Junta42: Do you consider yourself a custom publisher?

Eat Media: No, I don’t really care for the terminology. I’m not sure what it means—are you a publisher? Are you a printer? And what’s the “custom” part? Isn’t all quality publishing “custom?”

We call what we provide “managed corporate content,” although “managing editors for hire” is quicker and seems to resonate best. Our first focus is on the quality of the content: How relevant are these stories to your readers? What quality sources can we line up for the writer to interview? What’s the best way to tell this story—what format? Of course, if we think your magazine or website needs to be redesigned, we’ll let you know, and we’ll work with a design team to make that happen. But for us, the content always comes first. Anybody can make words look pretty on a page, but if there’s no substance, if your readers aren’t going to resonate with the material and be inspired to act in some way, then it’s a waste of dollars, time and trees.

Junta42: If you could change anything in your customers, what would it be?

Eat Media: Obliterating all forms of gobbledygook marketing speak. Readers don’t like to read it, and we don’t like writing it.

Junta42: How do you see your services evolving over the next five years?  Where will Eat Media be?

Eat Media: I see us offering more services in-house or through close partnerships in the areas of print and web design, video, audio and SEO to more fully support a client’s content marketing plan.

Junta42: Is there anything else - What's the bottom line?

Eat Media: Every marketing team should be allotted two exclamation points a year total. Use ‘em or lose ‘em.

Joe's commentary - What's interesting about Ian's story is that the idea of managed corporate content, which used to be so foreign, is now a necessity in organizations. Smart companies are understanding that they need focus and expertise for all their content initiatives.  It's too important for content to be an afterthought to a marketing program.

I'm not sure I agree with Ian that marketers could do what Eat Media does, but it's an excellent way to approach the sale. Thanks to Ian for taking the time.

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Comments

[simon kelly]

Interesting article - in part because of the way that people from all parts of the marketing, advertising and publishing spheres are coming to the same conclusion that content is at the heart of any good marketing strategy. Interesting that marketers are realizing the need for editorial, and that they can't do it. What was missing here I believe is another compelling reason to create original content (as opposed to adopting the portal model of serving up previously published content) which is that original content needs to support the story platform created for the brand - which only original content can do.

[Ian Alexander]

Simon,

Thanks for the comment. I'm not sure that marketers "can't" do it but rather that they "can't find the time to do it". And I agree 100% that linking to previously published content doesn't generate trust or help build a brand. I think the missing piece is not only the creation of the content but pushing for an inter-company commitment to creating a voice that can be supported by content. Creating original content solely to align with SEO is shortsighted, tiresome and bland. Here's hoping we can assist companies to realize that fact.

Ian