Content Marketing

                           

What’s Content Marketing all about?

Or why your Content Strategy should take precedence over marketing Strategy?

As a former journalist I adhered firmly to the belief that content was King. Indeed it was - the better and more value our news had, the better the sales of our newspapers. Content made all the difference between success and failure. That was in the early 1990s. And I now ponder why it took marketers another 20 years to actually come up with the terminology of content marketing.

Yes, when Joe Pulizzi formally founded the Content Marketing Institute, in 2010, he was being astute as much as it had to do with common sense. But let’s give credit where it is due and appreciate Joe for his remarkable venture that now is the leader in content marketing consultancy.

For those who are feeling left out, let me start from the beginning with a definition by the aforementioned institute.

Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Simple enough without having to dig into the dictionary to get the meaning!

Neil Patel, another enterprising Indian origin, who is regarded very highly by the American corporate sector for his marketing skills, agrees that   the definition is SOLID. He goes on to simplify it…

“It means that content marketing is a long-term strategy, based on building a strong relationship with your customers, by giving them valuable content that is highly relevant to them on a consistent basis.”

'Content is what you see and read: The pictures and the words and the presentation. Did you like the movie you saw recently? Moana or the last X-Men instalment or the Star Trek instalment –or Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them, or the series How to get away with Murder, et al. Did you like the books that you have read lately – be it fiction or non-fiction. Did you see that JK Rowling and her producers depended upon characters from the Harry Potter series (like Star Wars going back to prequels!) and came up with an ingenious way to bring back their Harry Potter Audience to the theatres?

Content and Context together go a long way in making a greater impact.

In marketing it is said that you have to have a story to tell about your brand or the brand has to tell a story. Marketing is no longer about screaming from roof tops, “I am the best!” People will hear you but not listen. Instead they are more prone to spend some time watching a street play with a story to tell and go back more impacted with the message and the people behind the message.

Let’s take an example of the Bill Board. Instant recall yes if your brand is well known. If you are reiterating your brands presence in the consumer’s mind why mess it up with too many messages. Stick to the core message and the let them mull over the seasonal message. “Happy Christmas from Velvex” – It’s simple and straight.

But if you are trying to tell a detailed story on the Bill board with numerous messages and a call to action – stay put. Bill Boards are for short staccato messages. Announcements! Period! Why do you need your company address and other useless information? If your company and brand is well known then interested consumers will find their way to your online presence – unless you have a url or asset username which is hard to discern.

What you put on your bill board is also content. Where you cannot tell a story – present a teaser, lead them on, tweak their curiosity – but don’t try to tell everything on the billboard. Nobody has time to read a billboard like a brochure!

The messages that you put on your packaging is also content. Some necessary and some not so much

Your logo tells a story and it can be extended with other messages that will add on to the story or make a greater reflection to the story.

Content is the King but when it is just fancy words and a lot of crap, people will tend to dislike your product in as much as people go with great expectancy to a much publicised movie only to walk out at the end feeling cheated.

Content is telling a story, not a fib. And sticking to what you say. Too many different stories for a single brand can be confusing if it is not aligned properly. Space out the content strategically. Seasonally. That is where context comes in.

Do not keep changing you story line. Have a strategy in place. Work on it like the movies. Like Marvel does. Dr Strange as a Marvel character and coinciding with the Avengers’ era with the next instalment to feature Thor – well there you have it! Movie marketing – or rather content marketing in the movies is the best way to understand how you can create content/nay stories for your brand.

If you are shaking your head and saying - my brand is not a movie, think again. If your brand has a story to tell wouldn’t you rather present it in RealD 3D, Dolby, IMAX version rather than a staid black and white comic book?

That is content and that is style. Go get strategizing on your content and don’t forget the context.

(Written in 2016)