Junta42 Content Marketing blog

3 Lessons from LeBron James, the Media Company

Everyone here in Cleveland is waiting with bated breath for the news that will come at 9 PM ET tonight - will LeBron James come back to the Cleveland Cavaliers or go to Miami, Chicago, New York or New Jersey? (UPDATE 7/9 - Yes, he chose Miami. And in the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all there is to say about that.")

Since being named "The Chosen One" by Sports Illustrated while he was still in high school (age 17), LeBron James is, perhaps, the most popular sports figure on the planet who hasn't (yet) won a major sports championship. He is, for sure, the highest paid player (including endorsements) in the National Basketball Association.

Over the past few years as this moment has culminated into one great event, two things are crystal clear:

1. LeBron James will sign a large contract with some NBA team tonight, and
2. LeBron James is developing one of the most powerful media companies in the world.

It's this second point that gets overlooked. Let's review:

Where's the Branded Content? Why OPA Research Falls Short

Jason Fell from Folio: Magazine was nice enough to send me some new research from the Online Publishers Association.

The goal of the OPA research was to help brand marketers understand the value of placing advertising of branded media sites (like WSJonline.com or ESPN.com - not AOL or Yahoo! which are portal sites). Here's what they found:

• Consumers are more likely to trust content from media sites (72%) as opposed to portal sites (60%) and social media sites Facebook (23%).
• Consumers are more likely to purchase products from brands advertising on media sites (8%) versus portal channels (5%) or social media (3%).

This is all fine and good, and probably makes OPA members (which are big media sites) very happy.  

But (here's a very big but), the OPA research misses the big question on the minds of marketers we talk with on a daily basis.  Here's what I told Jason who reported this in Folio:

If the goal of the research was to help brand marketers understand the value of placing advertising on branded media sites, the research still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The challenge for brand marketers is not necessarily whether they should advertise on a media site versus a portal versus a social network.  They are trying to decide whether they should advertise, or whether they should invest more of their marketing dollars into their own engaging content.

"Why and how do I (the brand) develop my own engaging content to my customers that will grow my business?" That's the question.

I would have loved to see the OPA include content from brands as well...brands like P&G or Eaton Corp. or General Electric or Motorola. More and more consumers are relying on brands and bloggers for their information and education.  If that is the case, and more consumers are trusting (as well as expecting) brands to deliver expert information to them, then if I'm a brand, I have some serious choices to make.

What if the study said that consumers trust brands close to as much as media or portal sites (when compared together - apples to apples)?  For example, if you are looking for information on energy saving tips for the home, would you go to a manufacturer like Lennox for information?  I sure would (and have).

Advertising, done right, is a very effective part of the marketing mix.  The big question is, do you allocate more money and resources to content marketing and branded content instead of advertising, sponsorship and other marketing initiatives.  According to Junta42's recent content marketing research, this is happening, where 33% of budgets are now dedicated to the creation and distribution of content, and that six in 10 marketers are increasing their budgets for the third year in the row.

If I'm OPA and have the interests of media sites at heart, I probably wouldn't be thinking this way (so we'll give them a free pass). But if I'm a marketer, I want to know this information. Do I "rent" the message by advertising around good content that's not mine, or do I "own" the content and position my brand as a trusted industry expert? Should I create valuable, relevant content that can be found on search engines, spread through social media, and work to attract and retain customers?

The Social Media Publishing Model for Publishers

I delivered a presentation yesterday at the Minnesota Magazine and Publishers Association (MMPA) about how publishers can leverage social media channels to grow their online footprint (and revolutionize their business).  Below is the presentation, but here are a few key takeaways.

• Social media is not cheap, it's a different kind of expensive (Jay Baer). Publishers that just look to integrate social media as a distribution channel only will not deliver on their promise to become the industry expert everywhere their customers are. Committing to changing your processes as it relates to social media is not cheap...it takes a number of resources, time and energy to properly implement.  Be prepared.
• What business are you in as a publisher? If you believe that your core business is publishing, then you are competing with the entire world (we are all publishers today).  As a publisher, you need to rethink your business (are you in the business of providing engaging experiences for your niche customers?).

5 Steps to a Social Media Model that Rocks

1. Find out where your customers are hanging out
   Identify the blogs, social media niche sites, online portals and forums and any other place where your customers (readers) are hanging out.  Read the discussion on the targeted sites.  Assign resources to getting active in those communities and commenting. Continually provide helpful information, positioning you as a clear expert in those communities.
2. Sign up key bloggers and niche sites to align with your publishing brand
   One of the reasons that MarketingProfs Daily Fix has been so successful is that they have partnered with experts from around the marketing world to contribute to their blog. Those contributors not only deliver assets to MProfs, but they share that content into their own social media networks. What MProfs has done is tap into a number of communities, without having to own those communities. This is something that all publishers should be doing.
   
   Should we be thinking like AOL or Yahoo!? (gasp) Many people don't realize that both these organizations have been snapping up niche content sites for years (like AOL and Engadget), and those sites have become one of their most important assets.  If niche publishers can start to build relationships with outside bloggers and niche industry sites, it opens the opportunity for partnership or possibly purchase in the future.
3. Changing the content process
   Remember the days of being assigned as an editor to a story and having the output be the story? Those days are coming to an end. As Dan McCarthy suggests, publishers must change their content generation process. Instead of just a content output of a print story, content creators deliver content throughout the process - tweets, photos, podcasts, content packages, etc.  Instead of one output, there may be 10, 20, or even 30 pieces of content. Readers are interested in being more involved in your brand. This opens up the hood, and lets your readers in.
    
4. Create employee rock stars
   Like Indium, take your employees (all your employees, not just your editors) and turn them into content creators. Set up blogs for each of your employees. Develop a social media policy. Train each employee how to write effectively for the web and share their experiences through social media. Currently, most niche publishers have just a few key content creators.  What if your entire organization told your brand story?  What would that do for your business?
5. Assign an internal champion
   This social media publishing plan won't just happen.  You need an internal driver.  Assign someone as your social media champion (someone with real passion for using social media). This person will be your lead trainer and cheerleader.

The presentation is below with additional social media ideas for publishers.  The point is this...if you are a publisher, you need to truly act like one.  These revolutionary changes will dynamically alter your future as a publishing brand for the better.

The Social Media Publishing Model for Publishers

View more presentations from Joe Pulizzi.

The Three Rules to Marketing Reset - Spreadable. Ultra-Niche. Consistent.

The last portion of this interview with Paul Laudicina of A.T. Kearney really struck me. Take a read through this paragraph, and then let's discuss.

You know, Peter Drucker used to say that companies fail not because they do the wrong thing or because they do the right thing poorly, but because they fail to understand a fundamental shift in the theory of business. Immelt [from GE] calls it an economic reset. Drucker called it a change in the theory of business. But you could call it a fundamental transformation. The most important thing any company could or should be doing now to prepare for the post-recession environment is to look at all of the fundamentals and reexamine what changes in the theory of business might mean for their core competencies, for their ability to meet the new consumer demand.

As I read this paragraph, I think of the many traditional publishers out there who have been working toward the end goal statement, "When advertising comes back..." Scary proposition.

Seth Godin blogged about the marketing reset as the movement from attention shortage to attention surplus.

There was an attention drought for the longest time. Marketers paid a fortune for TV ads (and in fact, network ads sold out months in advance) because it was so difficult to find enough attention. Ads worked, so the more ads you bought, the more money you made, thus marketers took all they could get.

This attention shortage drove our economy.

The internet has done something wacky to this situation. It has created a surplus of attention. Ads go unsold. People are spending hours on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook or other sites and not spending their attention on ads, because the ads are either absent or not worth watching.

Marketing is in the process of resetting itself (and has been for a while). What does this mean for us? I think we are all trying to figure it out, but here are three concepts to kick around.

1. Advertising can work, but more and more will be in the form of content and storytelling. If our advertising must be relevant and opt-in, great content is the only way. I think of Blendtec's Will it Blend? for this example. Ultimately, they are pitching the product the entire time - two minute product demos of their blenders in action - but they do it in such an entertaining way that you never feel like you are being sold. It's so good that people sign up to watch their marketing. To do: Stop thinking about pushing your product and start thinking about what your customers would do after engaging in your advertising/marketing. If the inclination is to spread the message, then you've done something right.
2. Go more niche. Instead of just a company Twitter account, maybe you need five - one for each customer segment.  Instead of a corporate Facebook account, maybe you need three Facebook "movements" - all focused on a customer concept or idea that solves their pain points. Each customer will have it's own niche channels you need to focus on - different blogs, different communities, different social media tools. To do: break down your customers' informational needs by segment.  Treat them differently. The more niche the better. The story needs to be relevant at all times. Remember that your customers won't search through your irrelevant content to get to your relevant content. They'll just give up and go somewhere else. Google makes that easy.
   
3. The most important content process issue that people forget is the idea of consistency. That's where the idea of the microsite fails.  It's one big push...lots of content all at once and then silence. It's better to start small and build up over time. To do: Don't launch your content marketing initiative waiting for perfection. Launch small, get feedback, adjust, pick a content schedule and stick to it.

Create marketing that spreads (or that your customers would be likely to talk about), go ultra-niche and whatever you develop, do it consistently. This is the recipe for content marketing success as our marketing resets itself.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Everyone is a Publisher...and Why this Really Matters (for you Media companies too)

Thanks to BoSacks for passing over this Time article on Content Becoming a Pauper. 

The story is worth the read, but here is a little snippet that sums up the author's point. As you can tell, he is taking the viewpoint on the value of content as it pertains to traditional media companies.

"The value of content has never been ethereal. It has always been directly tied to what owners could 'get' for it, either through advertisers or subscribers. For content to have a value, it could never be free. Its position as royalty depended on that.

Content is rapidly being devalued."

BoSacks Speaks Out
Okay, before I make my comments, I wanted to include BoSacks comments on this topic:

"I'm not sure where to begin with my comments on this article, and perhaps I should wait a day or two before responding.  But then again, that is just not my way - vent first and think about it later.
 
The author keeps referencing the decreased value of content.  I admit that I need to ponder the question, but right now I say that perhaps it is his company's content that is devalued, but not content itself.  That may be splitting hairs, but somebody is always going to make money on content.  Right now it is Google; next year or in ten years it will be somebody else.  Google doesn't make the content, but they sure as heck have figured out how make money on the content.  So it still has as much value as before, but perhaps not by the same companies.  Get over it and start thinking in 21st century terms and actions."

@juntajoe Speaks Out
I think BoSacks' points are close to the mark.  Who can deny that Google is making money off media content? And yes, someone always makes money off content. But the issue goes much, much further and needs to be looked at outside the eyes of the media model itself.

• Content is more valued than ever before. When consumers need to find solutions, they actively seek out content (90% of buying decisions start on the web - Forrester, 2007) to find answers to their problems. It's content that supplies those answers, in the form of text, video, audio, and social media - and consumers have almost unlimited ways to get the content. The difference today is that consumers are finding those answers coming from their peers and their favorite brands as well as the media. Everyone is a media company. Everyone is a publisher.
  
  Almost all marketing tactics are optional today. The one strategy that is not optional is developing ongoing content for your customers to help them make better buying decisions. Organizations and individuals around the world are trying to figure out how to create valuable and relevant content. While there is plenty of bad content out there, great content is in high demand.
• Two Types of Media Companies. To BoSacks point, there is always someone making money off the content, but look at it this way: Money doesn't have to be made DIRECTLY from the content in the form of sponsorships and paid subscribers. Don't get me wrong, I still believe in paid content. I pay for content I really value, and have no problem with doing so (read this article on the suggestion that an online micro-payment content model could work similar to the way people buy songs on iTunes). Smart companies have been using content for centuries to develop relationships with consumers that ultimately (in the long run) sell products and services. MasterCard Small Business uses a content marketing strategy to sell more credit cards (over 50% of new signups come directly from informational articles). LEGO is one of the most prolific publishers on the planet. P&G uses content to sell more feminine products. Like these three examples, companies must produce content to survive as a business, and there are literally no technological barriers.
  
  So, while media companies produce content to profit directly (like Time, Inc., NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.), other media companies profit indirectly from the content (MasterCard, LEGO, P&G, etc.). Professionals in both media and marketing need to understand this - we all compete for the attention of the consumer, hoping to build lasting relationships. If you produce software for design engineers, then a magazine brand like Machine Design is not only your partner, but a competitor as well.

While I was writing this post, I was also watching a BtoB webcast we sponsored on Marketing Outlook 2009. Mark Wilson, CMO from Sybase, talked about how Sybase employs "frugal and authentic marketing" as part of their current marketing program. That means that they are producing a ton of targeted, multi-platform content to their customers and prospects.  This includes self-published books, video newsletters, YouTube videos, segmented enewsletters, white papers and other vehicles where they can efficiently and honestly tell their story and get involved in important conversations. Sybase is a media company.

Overall, I strongly disagree with Douglas McIntyre (the author) about the waining importance of content.  It's needed and accessed by consumers now more than ever. Pure media content is still wanted and needed, but there is more competition today, and since the traditional media business model is threatened, quality corporate content is becoming more important than ever (corporations have the money to invest in content).

I'll end with this. I was talking to a media consultant last week who asked me my advice for struggling media companies. I told her that most media companies have great brands, and great relationships with readers. Readership/engagement isn't necessarily their problem. The issue is that their advertisers aren't advertising as much anymore, and their business models are based on advertising/sponsorship revenue. Since that's the case, a media brand can do one of two things:

1. Start charging for content or premium content (much like what MarketingProfs does so well, or a product such as Copyblogger's Teaching Sells).
2. Develop products or services that make sense in their industry. A lot of media companies are starting to do this, such as GIE Media, who has an incredibly strong data/research business.

It's funny. Marketers are trying to become publishers and publishers are trying to become marketers. I wonder when the day will come where we won't be able to distinguish one from the other.

It's closer than you think.

Subscribe  -  Junta42  -  Outsource Your Content  -  Get the Book

Is the Media Iceberg Melting?

Media companies are going through a major transformation, with the majority looking at the viability of their core business models. I touched on this in the most recent issue of Folio: magazine (check out the entire article here).

This excerpt puts the situation in perspective:

Corporations need content in order to survive, and all the trends show that this direction is only going to accelerate. If the iceberg hasn’t melted, it’s on the verge of cracking.

Media companies that can make the transition to offering their services up to corporations are the ones that will lead the new media business model. A few are dealing with these changes and are making major adjustments. Many are not. Which one will you be?

Corporations need content, but most either don't want to produce it themselves or don't have the expertise to produce content effectively as part of their total marketing strategies.  This opens a great opportunity for media companies to, effectively, teach businesses how to do what they do - which is create consistent compelling content initiatives.

Most media companies do not want to move in this direction.  Who can blame them?  It's much easier to sell advertising display programs.  It's too bad those days are over...

Subscribe  -  Junta42  -  Find Content Vendors  -  Get the Book

New Rules of Custom Publishing - New Complimentary White Paper: Nine Strategies to Create a World-Class Content Marketing Company

Find Expert Custom Publishers at Junta42 Match

The web and a continuing modification of buyer behavior (among other things) have changed the rules of what most people call the "custom publishing" industry. Traditional custom publishers, who profit from the creation and execution of customized content solutions for clients, must understand the new rules of custom publishing in order to survive. To help, I put together this complimentary white paper titled: The New Rules of Custom Publishing: Nine Key Strategies for Creating a World-Class Content Marketing Company.

Although this white paper is clearly targeted for publishers, or the providers of content services for marketing professionals, there is tremendous value for both marketers and publishers. This is especially true, since it doesn't matter if you make your money off of publishing or not. We are all publishers...so we all need to understand what is going on in the marketing/publishing world in order to compete in it (with content).

Unfortunately, most custom publishers are still hanging on to older business models  and, as such, are getting plowed down by those abiding by the new rules of custom publishing. That said, there is a huge opportunity for those organizations that do choose to adopt the new rules as part of their overall business strategy.

The nine strategies highlighted in "The New Rules of Custom Publishing" are:                   

1. Understand the Changes That Are Leading the Content Marketing Future - A comprehensive overview of the changes in technology, publishing and marketing that are driving the custom content revolution.
2. Be Active in Social Media:  It's Mandatory for the Future of Custom Publishing - From blogs to LinkedIn to Facebook, the new landscape of social media is an essential part of any strategy.
3. Acquire Expertise in All Forms of Content - Forget about focusing on one custom product; these days publishers need to be masters (or access to expertise) of everything from print magazines to Webcasts.
4. Walk the Talk - Don't expect a client to have confidence in your expertise if your company is not its own best content marketer.
5. Position Yourself as Both a Marketing and a Publishing Expert - Only companies that understand - and work with - both sides of the business are going to thrive.
6. Have a Clear Value Proposition - At some point the custom publishing field will become glutted.  What's going to differentiate your company from the masses?
7. Price Your Services According to What the Customer Values - From industry standards to client specifics, everything a company could need to know about pricing.
8. Value the Role of the Project Manager - No project is going to manage itself.  Don't underestimate the importance of good oversight.
9. Use Questions, Not Answers:  Five Steps to Closing the Deal - How to make the client knock on your door...

Download this complimentary white paper The New Rules of Custom Publishing: Nine Key Strategies for Creating a World-Class Content Marketing Company and take your content company into the new world of publishing.  I hope you enjoy it!

RSS Feed  I   Subscribe to the Junta42 Blog  I  Junta42  I  Junta42 Match

 

To Publishers: Your Customers Don't Need You Any Longer

I had the pleasure of speaking to about 40 magazine and book publishers in New York last week for the Publishing Business conference. The presentation was called "Businesses Are Becoming Publishers: What Your Customers Are Doing with Content and How to Handle it."

I've given this type of presentation to publishers before. I especially like the slide that I put up, in all black, that states "Your customers don't need you any longer..." I was happy to see that only a few people left the room after this slide.

The point I was trying to make is a simple one: in any market today, no matter how niche, sellers can reach buyers without going through distributors like magazine and book publishers.

This is not a new concept to many who read this blog, but it was definitely a wake up call to many in the audience who haven't thought about their business models in that way before.

The choice I gave them was not an easy one, but one that I truly believe has much opportunity for publishers. It is the choice between trying to grow top line revenue within a business model that used to work well, but will be challenging to grow in the future - or - giving in to the new buyer behavior and help teach traditional businesses how to become their own publishers.

Both directions have risk, but by publishers morphing into marketing services companies, they can begin to take advantage of the large shift of dollars from traditional advertising to customized content production and execution. According to Publications Management, 27% of marketing budgets now go toward the creation and execution of content.  I would anticipate this number getting to 50% within the next decade.

The big reason I see this as an opportunity?: Marketers don't want to be publishers. Frankly, in my discussions with marketing professionals, the last thing they want to do is be responsible for the creation of relevant content. Almost all of them now know they have to create valuable and compelling content to stay competitive, but they really don't want to do it themselves.

This premise is one of the major reasons we launched Junta42 Match. Businesses must start creating their own media, but they lack the will and the expertise to do it right. Publishers can help them get there.

Here is the link to the entire presentation from Publishing Business.  We also took video, which will be up as soon as I get around to it.

Exciting times for sure...lots of opportunity, as well as lots of business models that either don't or won't work in the very near future.

Related Articles:

• Media Companies Are Waiting to Make You Publishers
• Corporate Content Will Take Over Media as We Know It

RSS Feed  I   Subscribe to the Junta42 Blog  I  Junta42  I  Junta42 Match

4 Steps to Evolve from Marketer to Publisher

The definition of "marketer" from dictionary.com is as follows:

"someone who promotes or exchanges goods or services for money"

This definition is simple and straightforward. The role of the marketer has always to communicate a sales-oriented message in order to sell a product or service. Today, this couldn't be further from the truth.

The evolution of the marketer has sped faster than Moore's Law over the last decade. Most of this is a direct result of the change in buyer behavior and the role that technology has played into that. Buyers, inundated with thousands of marketing messages per day and equipped with TiVo, are generally unaffected by the vasts amounts of messages sent from marketers. Technology (like TiVo and pop-up blockers, for example) has enabled consumers to block out a marketer's message that surrounds the content that is really wanted by the buyer. Those messages that cannot be blocked by technology are served up to the conscious mind as irrelevant and are ignored.

So, what is a marketer to do?

A marketer's responsibility is no longer to communicate sales features and benefits about the products and services they offer. They must now do the following:

1. Define the critical group of buyers.
2. With a clear understanding of the buyer, find out what that buyer's informational NEEDS are.
3. Create the information that is NEEDED by the buyer, and do so on a consistent basis.
4. Track success through conversion measures and adjust as you go.

Only then can a relationship between a buyer and a seller take place. The buyer must allow us into their personal space first before any secondary product and service messages can get through. Since the content generated by the marketer is NEEDED (not just wanted), the buyer won't mind an occasional sales message. Even more, they will probably welcome one since the marketer's product or service will speak directly to the communication and workplace challenges of the buyer (since the marketer knows the buyer so well).

In order for a marketer to succeed, particularly in the business-to-business marketplace, the marketer must evolve into the publisher. A traditional publisher might be defined as "one that connects buyers and sellers together through a content exchange." The definition of a marketer-publisher is very similar. The difference is that a traditional publisher has a goal of making money on the content itself (through the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or paid content), while a marketer/publisher's goal is to attract and retain customers and make money from their own products and services.

The marketer's role as evolved into the teacher/the thought leader. The marketer's job is to make the buyer more intelligent, and by doing so, will reap the rewards of more goods and services sold. It is now, in the marketing department, that an organization can truly differentiate themselves from the competition and become a valuable customer asset. Now this is something the marketing department can be excited about!

To subscribe to more quality content like this post, receive the email update or get the RSS feed!

Related Articles:

• 42 Content-Building Ways to Attract and Retain Buyers
• 16 Questions to Ask Before Launching a Content Marketing Project
• Content is King, But What Is It Really?
• Stop Shouting Features: 5 Tips To Create a Knowledge Marketing Program
• 4 Content Marketing Essentials for Every Business

>>If you liked this article, try Junta42 for more.

Building a "Good" Brand - bnet Interview with Ben Goldhirsh

This is an 8 minute interview with Good magazine founder Ben Goldhirsh on bnet's Dog & Pony. Some interesting thoughts on the son of Inc. magazine founder, including print vs. online challenges with the brand, working with advertisers on selling more than product, and the challenge of doing good while making money at the same time.