What You Need to Know about Content Marketing

Just read this article by Steve Tobak on bnet entitled "What You Need to Know about Branding." Very cool article and worth checking out.  In the article, Steve contends that there are five key points that every manager needs to know about branding, and IMO he is dead on.

As I was reading the final three points, I wanted to take out the word "branding" and replace it with "content marketing." And so I did.  See below.

Content marketing strategy is not a one-off; it’s a component of your overall corporate strategy. Hopefully that begins with some sort of strategic planning process that defines your company’s vision, goals, and key strategies. Content marketing strategy is integrated and aligned with those.

Content marketing...is about using certain tools to achieve strategic and operating goals. For example, content marketing can be used to position similar or the same products in different market segments, typically at different pricing levels. That means changing perception without changing the product -a neat trick.

There are a myriad of decisions and tradeoffs involved in developing the right content marketing strategy for a company and its products and services. There is method to the madness. For example, a product line’s goals, market requirements, and value proposition will lead to a unique content marketing strategy. At least it should.

Key points:

1. Content marketing must be based on the company's organizational goals, of which are based on fulfilling a customer need.
2. Each company brand and product line could/should have a different content and informational strategy.
3. Each company brand's content marketing strategy is different because each product usually has different customer segments.  All customer groupings have their own informational needs, so the company must have different informational products and tactics as well.

Creating relevant, compelling and consisting content that works takes planning and investment. It's much more challenging to develop content that creates a connection and fosters engagement than placing a TV spot or an ad (which is one of the reasons why more companies aren't doing it more). It also can create an asset that has a much longer shelf life.

More companies are starting to realize this. As they do, it will even be more difficult to cut through the clutter. I have the feeling that we'll look back on content marketing now with nostalgia as the good old days...when it was pretty easy to get content delivered and noticed by customers. Tomorrow we'll have to be better...our customers deserve it.

Helpful Resources

• What is Content Marketing?
• The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing
• Content Marketing vs. Conversation Marketing
• Attract and Retain Customers White Paper

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Comments

[Ann Handley]

Joe -- Love this money quote:

"Creating relevant, compelling and consisting content that works takes planning and investment. It's much more challenging to develop content that creates a connection and fosters engagement than placing a TV spot or an ad (which is one of the reasons why more companies aren't doing it more). It also can create an asset that has a much longer shelf life."

Highlight that as a pull quote in 36-point type!

Nice.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Thanks Ann. Right on...