The Design And Media Innovation Blog

A good deal of the media I'm asked to create at Redboat is intended for marketing purposes, and in the past 15 years I've watched the strategies of marketing experts evolve radically. One of the brightest contestants on the marketing stage is 'Content marketing', and I like it. Here's why.

Advertising gets a bad rap at the best of times, mainly for the often offensive intrusion that irrelevant information creates in the most intimate space we have - our personal consciousness. The ultimate goal of marketing communications is to sell something, whether that be a product, a service or an idea. That holds truth in commerce, politics and religion. And lets face it... do we really need more stuff, more services,  and more information? With the global consciousness turning to sustainable futures, the real value of the stuff, services and information being pumped around the world today is coming under increasing scrutiny.

So how is content marketing different? And why are marketers excited by it? Firstly, it works. Secondly, it adds value. Did you notice I answered those questions in reverse order? One of the premises of content marketing is 'giving'. Is this a sign that a spiritual maturity is developing in business marketing? Maybe. More on that below. The bottom line for business is that it generates leads, builds brand awareness, and leads convert to sales.

Here's a snapshot from the B2B 2011 Content Marketing Survey.
(Click that link to read the entire 18 page PDF - for free!)

• Content marketing is growing dramatically in popularity with over 71 percent of respondents doing more of it than a year ago (in contrast, only 2 percent are doing less).
• The biggest motivator for content marketing is its ability to drive awareness, leads, and engagement with prospects, to compensate where where traditional tactics are falling short.
• The most popular content formats are case studies, presentations at live events, white papers, online articles and videos.
• The biggest challenge: producing truly engaging content.
• The most popular channels to deliver content are website, live events, email.
• The top performance metric for content marketer is leads.
• Corporate marketing owns content marketing in most organizations and spends an average of 20 percent of budget on content marketing.

What content formats are most effective? 
Leading the ranking are case studies, live presentations, ... white papers, online articles, and videos - these formats are considered most effective in engaging prospects and delivering message.

The survey was put together by Holger Schulze and The B2B Technology Marketing Community. The links:
1. Holger's 'Everything Technology Marketing' blog,
2. 'B2B Technology Marketing Community' LinkedIn Group).

The Wikipedia stub defines content marketing as subscribing, "to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action." I think Holger's report above shows that it's more than a 'notion'.

So what's the bottom line for the audience? Audience? Yes, lets drop the old term 'consumers', and give our patronage more respect. Being described as a 'consumer' never really floated my boat. You?

The emergence of video on demand, time-shifting TV, pay per view, and the internet with user generated content sites like Youtube and Facebook, has changed the way we all relate with advertising. We have more choice are less tolerant of irrelevant adverts. For now we're still having the advertisements thrust into our conscious awareness, but at least digitally targeted advertising means we see less of the utterly irrelevant ads. But content marketing is not about making advertising relevant.

Content marketing presents a strategy for businesses to generate leads based on genuine audience interest. Instead of relying on the audience being forced to watch digest a message, which in a world of increasing intolerance to irrelevant information consumption, advertisers have found that they can now attract the audience's attention from other places. How? By creating valuable content and giving it away for free.

To clarify, we're not talking about just blurring the line between the advertising content and non-advertising content. That's not good enough. The discerning audience doesn't buy that. Good content marketing gives away real authentic valuable content without any sales pitch. Just give it away. Yup - free! No strings attached!

Content marketing specialists, Junta42, define it as, "the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling."

Jeff Hurt, (Director of Education and Engagement, Velvet Chainsaw Consulting), writes in the Midcourse Corrections Blog, "Association leaders and meeting professionals need to consider how to react to the rapid growth of bias-free content marketing. If your mission includes education consider a co-opetitive (cooperative competition) approach. If you try to compete against those who have more trust or influence than you, you will lose."

I think there's a spiritual of maturity in the idea of 'agenda-free content marketing', that gives us a platform for audiences to weed out what's really valuable and what's not, something I personally value greatly and I believe the world desires more of. The audience isn't going to buy the product if it holds no value to them, they're less tolerant of content that's not valuable to them personally, so why bother serving it to them? It's a new paradigm of transparency in relating that we can find in mature, intimate personal relationships as well as business relationships. And it might go something like this;

Recognise the value and respect our own and others' personal spaces, consciousness and inner worlds. Create real value and trust that others will recognise that value and move towards it accordingly.

But before we get to thinking we're done evolving B2C, (B2A) and B2B communications, don't rest easy. This is just beginning. Not all content marketing is 'agenda-free' and may come 'loaded'. 'Agenda-free' may not be the kind of thinking old-school marketing institutions believe in just yet and may rattle some bones. Many will wonder how marketing can possilbly be effective without glamour, but my prediction is thus:

'Agenda-free' will emerge as the measure of value in B2B and B2C marketing communication because it will be more effective.

As the consciousness of audiences and businesses around the world evolves at an accelerating pace each year, they will demand greater transparency and openness. The old spells and glamours so deeply entrenched in the unconscious of business, political and religious marketing models must eventually crumble and give way to the new.
I'm up for it. Are you?

Enjoy,
Adrian