The Trickle Out of Traditional Media into Content Marketing Turns to Flood Starting Now

I have been hesitant to push this concept too much, but the evidence is just too vast to ignore anymore.  Those of you who are readers of this blog know that I've been talking about the push into content marketing from traditional media for years.

It's not like that's any big revelation.  We've been seeing traditional print and now even online display revenues take a beating at media companies. Layoffs and restructuring abound (even at Gawker and MySpace). Technology and consumer behavior has changed the landscape entirely and a new business model has emerged.

But, until this point, it has been happening slowly.  The 20% of traditional media spending that was chopped off after the 2001-2003 recession never came back, but it did stabilize, where we were seeing flat spending across the board in most industries. Over the past five years, marketers have been slowly socking away more money into their own content efforts, and pulling pennies from traditional media space to do it.

The economic "crisis" (or whatever you want to call it) will fundamentally change where marketing dollars go.  Frankly, I've been surprised that more companies haven't taken this on sooner.  Yes, companies spend between 27 and 30% of their budgets on their own content, but that number should be more like 50%. The case for content - engagement, search engine optimization, lead generation - it's there, no doubt about it.

Here's the news though.  Yes, advertising spending will drop substantially over the next year+. And yes, money will be moving around quite a bit, with more (even though a much smaller dollar number), going into online marketing. But the shift from traditional to content marketing activities will happen swiftly because of one big reason now - marketers now have the excuse they needed.

Seems almost silly, but marketing departments in larger companies are often times slow to move (you know who you are).  They have well-worn paths with agencies and marketing partners that go back years and decades. Over the past five years, marketers have been testing and "playing around with" creating their own content on a significant basis (much like P&G does with HomeMadeSimple.com and BeingGirl.com), but we haven't seen the significant "shift" as of yet.

This recession/crisis/slowdown is the excuse that marketers will use for moving traditional money out and getting creative. That means significant moves into content - blogs, articles, white papers, video series, variable enewsletters, eBooks - heck, even custom magazines are still hanging in there. If they are not already doing so, most companies will evolve themselves into true publishers of media, targeted to their specific segments of customers and prospects. 

In the previous recession five years ago, most of this "content" stuff was still unproven (even though content marketing spending is in excess of $30 billion dollars per year).  Today, we know it works, and marketers, although still a bit unsure and tentative, are licking their chops to move money into this area.

Inform or entertain. Inform or entertain.  Say it again...inform or entertain.  That's how engagement is created. That's how you become a part of the conversation.  That's how you create a dialogue and stop shouting. Both are tough to do today without creating relevant, compelling and consistent content.

How do I know all this? I have the opportunity to talk with custom publishers on a regular basis.  These are the guys that traditionally have provided content services for companies (although that is changing fast - but that's for another blog post).  You know what?  Business is up almost across the board.  Sure, there are a few big programs that have been cut, but those are being replaced by other new content projects.

Hmmm....end of times are here, and business is up.  Odd, to say the least.

Marketers are starting to get creative.  With this, we are seeing the biggest marketing supplier shakeup in history.  Publishers, custom publishers, pr firms, advertising agencies, interactive firms, SEO/SEM firms are all going after this thing called "content" (call it what you will...content marketing, custom publishing, custom content, branded content, corporate content, etc.). The next five years will be the wild wild west of mergers, buyouts and closings we have ever seen in the marketing industry. Those that understand the value of content (from a journalistic standpoint) will win.

If this prediction was available in a stock, I'd bet the farm.

Comments

[Ann Handley]

I agree, Joe, that content is increasingly playing a bigger role in marketing, and that organizations are starting to see the value of it. The challenge, of course, is to keep the standards high, to create "relevant, compelling and consistent content," as you say. To focus on the content as content first, in other words, and content as marketing second.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Agree 100% Ann. I guess the question I keep running into is this...In the future, will information be marketing? And if so, how will organizations set up their marketing departments to churn out consistently good editorial-type content?

I talked to a CEO from one of the leading content agencies the other day who said that in 20 years, companies won't have a need for outside publishers or content agencies because they will have to develop those competencies internally. Interesting.

Thanks for the post.

[Tom Peric]

Joe, the comment by the CEO is intriguing. But the real relevant observation is this one: Will people READ the content? And act upon it? Companies, with the rarest of exceptions, are almost psychically incapable of NOT beating their own drum, thus sounding like a sales pitch and not balanced content.
They are seldom objective, never daring and completely lack humor.

If companies believe that the public is essentially dumb and if that presumption is accurate, they will do fine, churning out pseudo-content. If, however, the public proves they are not as dumb or naïve as many companies believe they are, businesses are in trouble. And that means they're going to need content-journalists. Amen.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Tom...you are correct. That's why corporations are starting to understand that they need to stop pitching and start creating valuable, relevant and compelling content (content marketing). Smart ones are hiring custom publishers and journalists (like yourself) to help them succeed in this area. The companies that don't realize the importance of content...well...that's another blog post.

Cheers my friend.
Joe

[Mary Mangold]

Hi Joe. You know of course that your book Get Content - Get Customers is my bible and helps me to beat the drum for small and mid sized web customers to open their eyes to the remarkable shift from budget busting traditional advertising toward online self publishing and content marketing.

As a web services provider and content journalist, I have been thinking about the economic crisis alot and devouring information online to make sense of it all. This morning, I found your excellent article in my inbox. Wow! Your words reinforce my own sense of focus - good capitalist minded thinkers will come round to perceiving CMS and digital media tools as a mode of survival through tough times ahead. I'm convinced that "thinkers" will unite online to carry forward the traditions of the American Spirit in a paradigm shift that will change the way we operate forever. No matter how tough things get, our online world is not going away. Its going to be here through thick and thin, new world economy or not.

As always Joe, I thank you for your knowledge and your inspiration. Thus far, I have experience a surge in my own business model to consult, setup, launch and empower my web customers to utilize the powerful tools available through online Content Management Systems.

Let the flooding begin!

Your fan,

Mary

[Joe Pulizzi]

Mary...you are an inspiration yourself. Thanks for the kind words, and, it's only a matter of time...keep the faith.

Best
Joe

[Jeff Miller]

Hey Joe,

We are in the midst of this selling season and are A) pitching "content marketing" on a consistent basis and B) having *both* agencies and direct customers asking great questions about it.

Our sales professionals are understanding the concept much better and know there is money to be made selling it. The ad agencies and marketers intuitively know they better keep an open mind about it and move the budgets accordingly.

As we see the financial world fall apart and media companies struggling - content marketing is a beacon of opportunity in otherwise tough market conditions.

Keep up the evangelizing - I know I will.

JM

[Joe Pulizzi]

Jeff...love it, love it, love it. These are the types of comments that makes it all worth doing. Thanks for spreading the gospel.

jp

[Carmen Vj]

Content is still king. I am glad to hear that. I have been doing this content thing for years and my game has definitely got to get better. This side of the business will become more competitive indeed.

[Paul Conley]

Hi Joe,
I agree that the trickle is turning into a flood.
But that concerns me.
Very few marketers understand the difference between content marketing and traditional public-relations or marketing-communications efforts. Heck, most custom publishers don't understand the difference either.
I'm worried that as the amount of crap in the market skyrockets, it will dwarf the amount of engaging content. As a result, marketers who produce useless stuff on their own (or buy useless stuff from custom publishers) will complain endlessly about the money they wasted on content marketing. And within months we'll find that the conventional wisdom is that content marketing doesn't work.
Here's an example of what I mean. So far this year I've had three different companies approach me about ghost writing a blog for a senior executive. In each instance I told them I could not think of a worse idea than a ghost-written blog. I offered instead to help the senior executive learn to blog on his own. In every case the company thanked me for my time and said they would find someone else.
And I'm quite sure they did.
I know I'm not the only person to run into such problems. David Meerman Scott did a piece the other day on worst practices in corporate blogging. All of us have seen the sorts of things he's talking about:
http://tinyurl.com/3lkxcd
I wish we could slow the process down a bit. I'd like to see more people spending more time studying best practices before they get into the game.
But I don't think that will happen.
And I worry what that will mean for this movement.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Hi Paul...really interesting take on this topic. I agree with everything you've said, to a point.

I wish I had a crystal ball, and can only guess at what will happen...but here it is.

Yes, there will be more worthless content spread out there than ever before. We are entering a period of massive content experimentation, which I believe is mostly good. During this phase, a lot of companies will get this wrong (as you note with your blog example). Some companies will learn, adapt, and start to build on significant content assets and online conversations. Others will flounder.

If it's anything content marketing shows us, it's that it is NOT easy. We all continually need to beat the drum on how best to tell the story and how best to involve your company in customer conversations.

Long story short, you are right, but consumers are too smart to get caught up in the crap, and corporations will need to learn quickly. If businesses decide to abandon content marketing because they feel it doesn't work, then they will really be in trouble, because some company that learns how to do it will kick the crap out of them.

[Arjun Basu]

Consumers are too smart, you're right. But marketers aren't generally. They still aren't quite sure of the difference between marketing and PR. I've been running into this problem more and more.

What I've also seen, recently, is that our meetings are getting bigger. The client side is getting larger. I suppose this is a result of more people ensuring their investments are being well spent. It also means we, as custom content providers, have more "educating" to do...again.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Arjun...great point. I think the larger meetings mean that more people in the company have a vested interest in the content itself (of course).

And yes, so much educating to do (and so little time)...