How Content Marketing Will Shake the Tree

August 6, 2008 · Comments

money tree Content marketing, in my definition, is the ability to produce useful and entertaining information that is worthwhile on its own, but that might also be useful towards a sale or subsequent action. For instance, a really good review of a product from a trusted source is content marketing. Every time Paisano writes about an amazing piece of software that he loves, it’s a kind of content marketing that I’d call reputation- or authority-based content marketing (meaning, maybe he’ll get consulting work based on someone feeling he’s a thought leader).

Before I go further, I should say that there are variations on the theme. I was speaking with Todd Defren of Shift the other day about content marketing, and this was his take on it. That’s another great way to look at it. I spoke a few weeks back to Francois Gossieaux about another variation that he’s done for years. It’s all in the same ballpark. This is essentially what Brian Clark has talked about for two years and counting.

Content Marketing Will Deliver

First, it’s simply a better way to go. Why spend time, money, and creative effort making fake, glossy, slick pieces of marketing material when something honest and informative (and ENTERTAINING!) would likely do a better job? Twizzlers are great, but not for breakfast. I think traditional marketing efforts, the slick and shiny kind, are like red licorice. I think of content marketing as a well-balanced meal. Crazy? Maybe.

Let’s say your goal is lead generation. A good chunk of marketing effort and attention seems to be shifting in this direction, especially for products and services with a complex sell. In a traditional approach, you might work very hard on explain just why your product is the best tool for a certain job. But what if, instead, you wrote up some really great suggestions for how one might do that certain job better, with or without your product, and then made a very simple link back to whatever your product offer might be? Which would offer more value to your prospective customer?

Slower? Yes. More effort? Yes. But I believe the results will speak for themselves. Instead of gorging on data culled from yet another Free iPhone offer, you will start to accumulate relationships with people who actually care about the space where your company is doing business, and might actually benefit from your product/service.

Examples of Great Content Marketing

One just sold for $125 Million. Daily Candy. If you want proof in the pudding, there’s a big fat content package that someone put to good work.

The Fast Forward Blog produced by Corante is a great lead generator for an enterprise search company. I’m subscribed.

Whole Foods has all kinds of great content. In their case, it’s a bit of customer retention, community support, and also lead generation. Look at how they use Twitter, too. Great content marketing, and filled with personality.

My two most overused but beloved stories of content marketing: Financial Aid Podcast and Wine Library TV. Both sell a product, but do it by giving you lots of interesting information.

What Comes Next

For you to consider doing this, I’d recommend the following steps:

  1. Decide on your content marketing strategy. Is this lead generation, customer retention, thought leadership, or related to product marketing?
  2. Determine if you have content creators on staff right now, and whether this is something they should be doing for your business. If no, start thinking of whether you want to hire or source this kind of work.
  3. Determine the type of content to create, the frequency of your new materials, the form it will take, and whether you have a platform in place to deliver this without much effort.
  4. Build appropriate measurement and listening tools around the platform so that you know who is doing what with the content you’re creating, and so that you can see the impact it has outside of your website as well.
  5. Wrap this all into a process with ties back to your standard lines of business, including marketing, sales, and possibly even R&D. Ensure that this isn’t an island, but rather a strong part of how you intend to deliver value for your organization.

This kind of project can be done in a pilot flavor, and/or can be done in lots of different iterations. I’ve been looking at it very closely for the last several months as part of my work with my colleagues at CrossTech Partners. As businesses are seeking to acquire more quality leads, to retain their existing customers, and to deliver relevant sales, this is where I think the most impact can be had.

Are you using content creation to build your business? Have you tried any of this yet? Where have you seen this done well or otherwise? What’s your take?

—

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.

Photo credit, Jon David Oakley

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  • Great article Chris - I recently penned a piece on Content Marketing at http://bit.ly/IHvgx - Have a look & share your thoughts.

    Content Marketing relies primarily on credibility and then on the individual/corporations marketing abilities.
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  • jul
    fascinating. i loved this. very insightful thank you
  • Chris,

    You mentioned building "appropriate measurement and listening tools" so that way you can see the impact of your content. What are some of the listening tools that you use? I'm trying to thing of ways to do that: I guess you could have a Twitter Search for keywords you use; Monitor how your content is bookmarked across Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. What did you have in mind when you wrote that?
  • Great, great post. Everyone wondering "where's the money in social media" needs to ask themselves, "who wants to pay for what I'm creating"? And if what you're creating is information or education about products, services or experiences, then yes, someone wants that information -- and, if it's good, they'll pay for it.

    That's what fuels the Travel, Food and Discovery channels.
  • Ann Wilberton
    I'm a librarian, contemplating the role of social media in the public library. There are so many ways we can expand our fan (customer) base, inform our users and inspire them in their quest for knowledge, entertainment and experience. Libaries are becoming more and more not just a place to pick up a book; but, also a place to meet peers over a game of Wii, take a class, start a blog, connect to free WiFi. Your post has given me plenty to think about and bring to my colleagues. It also has turned on another light for me. I am a former employee of Powell's Books and have always enjoyed their blog. Now I know why: Like the Whole Foods blog, it is informative, interesting, has value and is well written. I've been enjoying your blog, Thanks.
  • Provide value.
    We market to agencies who are trying to figure out how to explain social media to their clients. One of the most effective things I've done is to create 'generic' unbranded PowerPoint decks on the subject that the agencies can use to achieve their goals with client education. I don't want attribution or even a brand mention and they can do whatever they want with them. I put them on Slideshare and have had a thousand or so views.
    I really think this is the future of marketing. We already have a blindness to traditional advertising that renders it almost useless. And we've become very sophisticated consumers of information because access is so easy. Give me something valuable or useful and I will remember you. Intrude on my attention with something I don't want and I will also remember you!
  • Hi Chris - I'm pretty new to blogging but have been online since 1998 offering real estate content as an experienced Realtor with a strong service mentality. Could be that I'm not entertaining enough ;-) but I see that there is an abyss between giving and subsequently converting to leads. But it could just be that trust and credibility are not as readily converted or as sparkly "widgets". I'm still working on it- thanks for some new ideas.
  • It's how Macy's ended up with more loyal customers a la "Miracle on 34th Street," only via blog instead of on Santa's lap.

    I've been toying with this idea for my blog with the Christmas season coming. Mentioning my (near-)competitors and pointing out the differences in our features & benefits. I say "near" because over the past 3 years I have never seen anything quite like the product I make and sell. Similar, but with no more than half the features.

    Hmmm. What you say makes sense and I'm going to give it a shot this year. Hopefully this shot will net me a direct hit.

    Thanks!
  • Hi, Chris--Saw Stever's mention of this article on Twitter. As a publicist with 28 years of experience promoting many of the best of the best, the most successful partnerships carry this value in common: to be of service. If you are filling up the planet with self-serving garbage, ultimately you haven't really made a difference. If you COME FROM a place of service, add value through products and books and ideas you believe in, that you believe will shift the state of this poor ailing planet, and then take responsibility by adding your name, it will come back to you. Adding value requires continuous work on oneself, btw. Continuous growth, continuous exploration of your own inner wiring (hard and soft), continuous improvement. In this age it's not that hard to do. Ask.
  • Stever,

    You mentioned getting more sales from one speaking gig -- does your content raise your profile, so that you will get more/better speaking engagements? It might not be a direct sales relationship, but I would imagine that in many cases, good content increases reputation, which can generate sales.
  • Chris,


    I love the concept of "content marketing" but think it's a great way to waste huge amounts of time and energy.

    I generate tons of useful, free content. I've been writing since 1999 on Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and now dealing with too much email and email overload. My personal productivity podcast, The Get-it-Done Guy, has been a fixture in the iTunes top-20 business since November 2007. My articles archive (articles.steverrobbins.com) has a ton of free articles.

    The more content I give away, the more popular I become. *But it just hasn't translated into business.*

    I'm an executive coach. My service is a high-ticket item. Purchasers choose a coach based on relationship and reputation. Content marketing has given a peek into my brain and built a reputation, but speaking at a single conference generates more business than all my online content put together.

    I'm moving towards creating audio products (e.g. You Are Not Your Inbox, an email overload audio product). I don't know if content marketing will have better results there. If the product gets viral-type traction, yeah, it'll be worth it. But if there's a purely linear relationship between my content generation and sales, the cost to generate content will overwhelm the revenue.

    Before jumping into content generation, I'd suggest asking some behavioral questions:

    * Do the people who make purchase decisions read the kind of content you propose to publish?
    * Are the people who *are* reading willing to buy?
    * How much must you sell to make up for the cost of generating the content?
    * If you don't get sales, is the reputation boost alone sufficient to justify the cost?

    Don't just assume content marketing works. Be smart about it, and link it to what you know about your target market.
  • Mindy Klement
    Great post Chris. Content marketing is something that we've been doing at my company; however, the bigger question I have is how to use that content to get leads and traffic to the site. We currently post content throughout different traffic drivers - company blog, industry blogs, Scribd, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Are there any other 'content aggregators' that can help leverage the content we're creating to reach the end goal?
  • Am feeling this way about ecommerce companies these days - consultants and software providers alike. Some really good blogs out there: www.getelastic.com is a great one. We're doing something similar with www.doubleplus.com but aimed at Miva Merchant users. The idea is great content that's really helpful to people, and if/when they want more, they can come hire us. I'd never put a name to it, though, and "content marketing" seems like a great description, Chris.
  • I like Mike's approach, but that keeps it all about the landing site. To me, content is going the other way these days. Sure, there may be an eventual touchdown on your site, because that's where the sale takes place, but that's not the same as gearing up to put your media where the people are consuming it.

    Fish where the fish are. Right?
  • I think the term content marketing in not clear, I think of this phenomena of a person sharing an authentic and real story about a product or service to be testimonial marketing. The person is giving testimony which is far more powerful and accurate a term than just content. Content really tells us nothing of what the information is, while testimonial shares with you the fact that it is the strongly held opinion of this person's content.
  • Hi Chris,

    I love the phrase "content marketing." As someone who was weaned in Film & TV I have always believed that "content is King." I have also always believed that advertising and marketing, when properly targeted, becomes content. This has never been more apparent than in today's digitally connected world, where the tools to create content are democratized, and the ability to target and narrowcast with laser-like precision is readily available through content driven technologies such as blogs, podcasts, IPTV sites, social networks, etc. That said, if content is King then "Community" may be Queen, as building, retaining, and enhancing engagement with your community is also of paramount importance(and a business' "community" is its customers, prospects, industry, employees, etc.) With that in mind, leveraging "content marketing" to give back something of value to your business community over and above your "product" seems like a wise investment of creativity and resources. Coincidentally, at Myxer, our own in-house social media maven, JC Hutchins, just launched an independent pop culture content blog called MINE - http://mine.myxer.com - which is loosely connected to our core mobile content business and rather focuses on building community around great content that we believe will appeal to our core business audience. Until your blog post, I didn't realize we were engaging in "content marketing!" Thanks!
  • I think I'm closer to Mike Volpe's view on marketing. To me, what you're talking about is dialogue marketing, that is engaging in "relevant" two-way communications with customers - whether or not a product or service is involved.
  • Good post Chris! I think some businesses are embracing content marketing and others will wake up - eventually - and wonder what happened because they were NOT using it effectively.

    I believe the biggest challenge for most businesses is that they do not respond quickly enough to changes. Businesses that are just now learning about social networking, facebook, twitter, etc., have been surpassed by businesses that embraced it from the start.

    I talk to businesses every day that are still hesitant to be online; some of them are light years away from social networking and content marketing because they are stuck on traditional methods that do not work.

    You are leading the field and many more need to follow.

    Thanks!
  • I agree totally! As a matter of fact, I am sharing these ideas with a Ukrainian advertising firm that I consult, because they do not understand the power of being genuine, bringing value to the table for all stakeholders and not just current customers, and are stuck where America was 50 years ago!

    Today, the average consumer is more educated and is bombarded with so much noise from the Internet, TV, radio, etc. that they are tuning out and filtering what they will accept as valuable and legitimate. When they read or hear something that offers a solution to a nagging concern or problem (whether they knew they had this concern or you brought it to the surface) in a non-sale atmosphere, it is refreshing and they respond. And, if a third party offers content on your product or service, well, that’s even better! Why? You don’t have to break your arm trying to pat your own back and people give it more credibility.

    You are definitely leading the pack in the right direction! Thanks!
  • Great comments as always....

    I think you're right, Chris; content marketing is shaking the tree AND the bushes!

    My wife (the lovely Lidia) and I were watching "So You Think You Can Dance?" while eating dinner last night and the way the people on that show compliment and EDIFY one another in such an emotional and heartfelt way, reminded me of your blog. You are always so complimentary of other bloggers/companies and make a point of edification whenever it's justified. The tree can consider itself duly shaken and I think that this highlights what successful blogging/social networking is all about.... it's a mindset and a culture and is changing the way we go about our marketing, in a good way.

    Yours with boundless enthusiasm,

    Richard :)
    Chief Deal Weaver
    www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
  • Great comments as always....

    I think you're right, Chris; content marketing is shaking the tree AND the bushes!

    My wife (the lovely Lidia) and I were watching "So You Think You Can Dance?" while eating dinner last night and the way the people on that show compliment and EDIFY one another in such an emotional and heartfelt way, reminded me of your blog. You are always so complimentary of other bloggers/companies and make a point of edification whenever it's justified. The tree can consider itself duly shaken and I think that this highlights what successful blogging/social networking is all about.... it's a mindset and a culture and is changing the way we go about our marketing, in a good way.

    Yours with boundledd enthusiasm,

    Richard :)
    Chief Deal Weaver
    www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
  • Chris,

    my gosh, and you told me you didn't know anything about marketing!

    You know, I drink the cool-aid as much as any other good fish bowl dweller.. but I don't know.. which is not quite to say I disagree.. I mean.. perhaps the question is "when talking about the future, just how far in the future are we really talking about," and that variable probably hides many a devil, don't cha know?

    The strategy you propose makes a hell of a lot of sense in terms of our current understanding of communities and social media.. no question about it.. but how does technology contextualize our understanding? In all probability much of how technology contextualizes our understanding is unconscious.. or to put it more distinctly.. its simply taken for granted.. and when what is taken for granted gets pulled out from under our feet we call it "a disruption."

    I find myself thinking "well just apply game theory to psycho-social dynamics and you'll have the answer." Of course you'll have to factor in some new fangled take on social biology.. and um.. other fun stuff.. but I mean.. the reason why I'd come at the question from this direction is because I think this is a way to transcend the issue of the container.. its a way to get out of the temporal flux and deal with the more or less none moving truths of things.. which are ultimately what are driving change anyway..

    I mean one of the questions I find myself thinking is "well are with in the business of making the better mouse trap or in the content creation business?"

    What I'm asking here is.. what is it that defines the box.. the box you live in.. the box that's "and this is the skill set I need to an inhabitant of this box." Think of box as.. like a persona.. a mask you ware.. it's the roll you're playing...

    What defines boxes can sometimes be turf wars.. it can sometimes be power relationships (Foucault is the grand poe ba master of this subject ) we can see this in lexicographical evolutions.. in linguistics.. this is what David Weinberger is talking about with his miscellaneous shtick..

    So.. you know.. what is marketing / communications, and whatever? Are they just boxes or is there something to them that is transcendent of human categories?

    I tend to this of the differences of boxes as analogous to the differences in races.. its more a matter of ethnic identity then it's a matter of genetics.. and so.. if you want to be good at diplomacy.. you want to understand the history of a nation, in order to understand that national identity.. to know where its going..

    That said.. when I look at the future of social media / the internet / technology / etc.. what I see is accelerating rates of granularity.. if the shifting power relationships of social media continue.. even after the feared business co-opting of it.. then eventually there will come a time where the lines that articulate the boxes are not externally imposed.. but internally imposed... which would spell the end of marketing and communications as we know it..

    I'm not sure if I'm making total sense here or not.. probably flying through too many ideas to quickly.. but hopefully its food for thought anyway
  • I have a slightly differenty take, but we're in the same ballpark. I think it goes a little beyond "content marketing" toward "inbound marketing" where you do lots of things (not just content, but also social media, SEO, analytics, etc.) to draw people into your business, rather than interruption everyone with your commericals via ads, cold calls and spam. Content is a key piece, but it takes more than that.

    http://blog.hubspot.com/tabid/6307/bid/2989/Out...
  • Chris,

    Nice post. Is what you are describing any different than what CNET was providing 10 years ago, or what the use of white-papers or webinars attempts to acheive? I'm trying to understand whether I am missing anything between those forms of content marketing and what you have in mind. Do you see them as different, more authentic or do are they just becoming more important or top-of-mind because of the energy around social media?

    thanks,
    @mwalsh
  • Ian M
    I've also noticed a shift. With that said this form of marketing, while some might think it labor intensive, actually does deliver results on a much more regular basis. I might get slapped on the hand for saying this but I believe the "tried and true" forms of marketing and in fact the easy way out (not to say that they don't have a place).

    Anyhow, good post sir! Keep it coming.
  • I'm not sure that this is where marketing is going, but it's certainly where it *should* be going. You've written a remarkably clear and concise roadmap.

    Oh, and you've just made my job selling this idea a little bit easier. Many thanks.
  • Great post Chris. I think content marketing, or it's cousin, branded entertainment, play a huge role in helping to build brand and relationships. I've always been of the opinion that the most effective marketing is content that people choose to experience. When people make a conscious decision to interact with your brand, be it for a purchase or simply an experience, it means your brand is now close to mind when the same person comes to another point of consideration, including purchase.

    I just dug up this article I wrote a couple of years ago, of course my views have shifted a bit since then, as has the landscape, but it definitely echoes your sentiments here, and makes me think it's time to update and expand on the subject: http://blog.heavybagmedia.com/2007/01/06/brand-...
  • Chris,
    Interesting. Marketers for decades think they actually do content marketing and some do it well. The difference is it's confined to traditional media for the most part.

    Your take requires a leap of faith on the part of firms that will actually admit that others (outside the corporate walled garden) can content market. Slick and polished has so much inertia today. We've spent years and millions on improving production value with the belief that it makes a difference. Professional = sales and profits, and sometimes it really does. But much of what we mail gets shredded. Did it matter?

    The fact that more and more products are now a commodity has made it more difficult. The economic times make it more difficult. Social media is becoming a bright new catalyst. A beacon for renewal. Great.

    My firm does a lot of classic direct mail. Hundreds of millions of pieces and it's wired to an exact science, honed over decades of testing. It works, but the bottom line is tough to move.

    We're now entering the social sphere. Content marketing as you put it is gaining traction in our shop. A longer tail for sure, but a much deeper and broader dive.

    I'm leading this effort at my firm, and will report back as we progress.

    Thanks for keeping us awake at the wheel.
  • "But what if, instead, you wrote up some really great suggestions for how one might do that certain job better, with or without your product, and then made a very simple link back to whatever your product offer might be? Which would offer more value to your prospective customer?"

    Great line. I'm noticing this shift for sure. Most notably with companies like Hubspot and SEOmoz.
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