The birth and rise of content marketing

Does a marketing concept without a Wikipedia entry officially exist?

Permission marketing: check. Viral marketing: check. Search engine marketing: check. All present and correct. Content marketing: not yet.

So here's my definition.

Content marketing is the technique of sourcing, creating and distributing relevant and valued content to attract, acquire, engage and enthuse a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer behaviour.

Do you agree?  Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett do. They write about content marketing at their influential website Content Marketing Today.  They also have a free eBook that you should download.  In echoes of Seth Godin, Pulizzi and Berrett position content marketing as an antidote to the 'old model' of interruption marketing which relies on the industrial era tactic of bombarding people with advertising communications in the hope that some of it sticks.

Content marketing is appropriate for all stages of the 'client path'.  From stranger to prospect to client to advocate, relevant and authoritative content is highly valued.

You need to understand your customers and your potential future customers.  A key part of this is to identify what information is needed in your market and to provide that as a priority to support and drive customer research and purchasing decisions.

Is content marketing a new concept?  Enlightened businesses have been practising it for years. But now the possibilities are more scaleable. The Web era demands that every business and organization needs to consider and implement a content marketing strategy as a core part of planning and delivering an integrated marketing strategy.

Whatever the size of your business, content marketing is critical.  David Meerman Scott proposed in a comment on my blog - What is great content marketing? - that 'the definition of marketing is the influencing of opinion through content.'

I like this a lot but propose an enhancement: 'the definition of Marketing is the influencing of opinion through content, converted to profitable action.'

Marketing has to be accountable and so marketers need to emphasize the importance of building a content marketing strategy with clear, measurable objectives.  Developing a simple dashboard to monitor and assess your content marketing impact is a very worthwhile investment of time.

As Billy Bragg once sang: 'Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman'.  Create and distribute targeted content through the channels where existing, new and future clients are looking for it, and provide it in the format they want it.

Be relevant, be valued and get your customers to act.

www.relevantandvalued.com

Comments

[David Meerman Scott]

Why is content marketing so important? Because your brand is what Google says it is. What are you?

Thanks for spreading to word.

Best, David

[Joe Pulizzi, Junta42]

Hi Pete...thanks for joining the crew.

Actually, content marketing is covered as an "also called" under Wikipedia at Custom Media (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom_media). A bit more support and we can get our own listing.

And, which song is that Billy Bragg lyric from?

Thanks!
Joe

[Pete Shemilt]

Hi Joe

The Billy Bragg lyric is from Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards off the Workers' Playtime album:

http://www.billybragg.co.uk/releases/albums/workers_playtime/work11.html

Great song, even better lyrics

Pete

[Andrew Findlater]

As a B2B online publisher, we are seeing more and more of our advertisers using content to qualify potential leads -the tech market has led this with its content currency of white papers and suppliers in other markets are following suit with their equivalent.

[Scott Frangos]

Hi Pete & All -

I think Content is one of the 5 "C's" of Social Marketing. Content, Community, Conversation, Connection, Convergence (see article at: http://webhelpermagazine.com/2007/11/five-cs-of-social-marketing/).

But I like it that you have thrown another, very important "C" word -- "Conversion" -- into the mix. Content is first, and very important, but without the other activity in the other "C's" it just sits there ("old school" websites). Still, I place it within Social Marketing, because the "Social" aspect (particularly online) is what's new. Content, and marketing of same (books and newspapers, for example), has been ongoing for years.

Yours,
Scott