Tag Archives: Content marketing

February 6, 2014 · 11:26 am

Ads Are Easy – Content Is Hard

For some reason many of the people with whom I spoke  yesterday had content creation on their minds.

Old AD (L1010566)

(Photo credit: Foread)

All three were former clients who wanted to understand the latest buzzword, content marketing.  As with the use of any term, I first wanted to understand what they thought the term meant.  As it turned out, they had widely differing definitions.  These ranged from what I’d call advertorial to what the industry does term “content marketing.”

My point of view is that brands have always been content creators.  Ads are content – their channel of distribution is paid media.  PR is content – it gets picked up in earned media.  Today, websites, social presences, and who knows what else by the time I’m done writing this (things DO change kind of quickly) are also content and are put out through channels brands own themselves.  I think, however, this is missing the point.

Customers want to be educated.  Sure, it’s nice to give them a laugh or a tear as many brands did during the Super Bowl, but the nature of marketing today is that ongoing conversation I’ve written about before.  Customers want smart brand representatives who can educated them and help to solve their problems when they arise.  However brands touch and audience, I think it needs to be less about the sale and a lot more about engagement.  That comes from an honest and open dialogue with the consumer, not by tricking them into reading a sales piece in the guise of a magazine article.  Posting fake reviews to enhance your brand does nothing except risk massive embarrassment when they’re discovered and sound a discordant note when real reviewers point out how the fake reviews bear no resemblance to reality.

Creating ads is relatively easy.  Everyone sees them as a brand message, a certain amount (and it’s tiny) of hyperbole is expected, and it’s clear something is being sold.  Creating content that educates and informs is much harder.  Maintaining a transparent and open social presence is as well.  That, however, is what marketing has become, at least for those brands that are in touch with their consumers.  Are you?

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January 20, 2014 · 11:09 am

The Content That Matters

Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deuts...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There has been a lot written about content marketing.

Some seers have even proclaimed 2014 as the year of content marketing, and as Google adjusts their search algorithms to make content more important in determining search rank, one can understand why “content” is on everyone’s lips here in digital business land.  Since I’m never one to miss a large bandwagon, let me jump right on to talk about the only content that matters.  I have a particular reason for doing so today.

We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday today.  As I’ve written in past years on this occasion, I remember him and his struggles well from my childhood.  The quote that stuck is from the “I Have A Dream” speech about the importance of judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.  That is the content that matters – the ONLY content that really matters – as we do business.

What, for example, does it say about the character of those retailers who run sales tied to “the MLK event.”  What it says to me is that they are tone-deaf, as was the cognac brand that sent out an email with drink recipes “MLK Jr. would be proud of.”  Really?  This is not about Dr. King or his principles or his legacy.  It’s about a brand trying to sell something and is, in the word Dr. King’s daughter used to describe similar activities, “appalling.”  That describes the character of their content just as it does the content of their character.

I don’t know about you, but I try to do business with people, not brands.  There are restaurants and other businesses I frequent almost solely because I like and trust the people with whom I deal.  I hope that many of my clients have hired me not just for what and who I know but also because they have a sense of the business person I try to be.  You can be sure that many of the people with whom you do business are looking at you and your company in the same way.

A business’ success or customer service isn’t about the store; it’s about the person on the other side of the counter or the desk or who answers the phone.  The content of their character will determine the brand’s success or failure.  You can choose those people wisely and support them as they let the content of that character show.  You can choose to market as did the brands above which also reveals a lot about the content of brand’s character.  It’s the only content that matters.  What’s your choice?

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December 23, 2013 · 11:41 am

The Pandora’s Box Of Content

As we get to the end of the year, many people (myself included) use the leisurely pace of this week to reflect and/or plan.

Pandora's Box Side

(Photo credit: yum9me)

With that in mind, I think we should spend a bit of time reflecting on Pandora’s Box and how it relates to content.  As you remember, said box was said to have contained all the evils of the world.  Modern usage of the expression is more like the Butterfly Effect I’ve written about before – small things leading to major impacts.

The Pandora’s Box to which I’m referring today is that of native advertising.  I’ve written before about this topic as well, but as the pace of publishers to utilize sponsored content that’s made to look like editorial increases, I wanted to pause and reflect on it again.  As The Wall Street Journal reported

Spending on sponsored content is expected to grow 24% to $1.9 billion this year, a faster growth rate than for most other forms of digital marketing. Total digital advertising spending will total $42.3 billion this year, according to eMarketer.

In other words, roughly 5% of all digital ad spending will be on this form.  That’s a lot.  I’m old school – ads should be easily recognized as such.  That said, I have no problem with content put together by a sponsor and a publisher as long as the substance of that content is accurate.  For example, this blog could be considered an ad for my consulting practice.  That said, I go to some lengths to be sure that what I put up here on the screed is fact-based and not one-sided so that you can mind up your own minds.  An article on, say, the health benefits of french fries (good luck with that!) that exists solely because McDonald’s or Burger King commissioned it and seems like every other article on the web page or magazine or TV news report seems well over the foul line.

This Pandora’s Box is wide open.  Even the New York Times digital is accepting this kind of advertising.  Think is will be long before it isn’t 30 minute infomercials we see on TV but 2.5 minute “news updates” that use station talent?    I’m glad the IAB is working on guidelines and I’m glad the FTC is holding hearings.  Ultimately, however, it’s those of us who  are the product (it’s our eyeballs they’re after!) who need to weigh in loudly.  You agree?

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