Great overview of content marketing in this MarketingSherpa article. In it, I discuss the only difference between a media company and a non-media company.
“The only difference,” Pulizzi says, “is that a media company leverages content in order to sell paid content and sponsorships … A non-media company needs to create that same type of content, but they do not get paid content or sponsorships — they do it to sell products and services.”
I talk with marketers all the time that just don’t get the idea that they need to think and act like publishers. Being a publisher means that all day long you think about the needs of the readers, how to engage those direct needs, and monetize that engagement.
That is today’s marketing. That is content marketing.
Instead of making money from ads or sponsorships like a publisher would, you sell more products and services. But everything else is the same.
Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer’s CEO, puts it like this.
Marketers should ask themselves five questions about the magnetic content they are seeking to create to determine whether it will be truly attractive to their audience:
- Is the content unique?
- Is the content useful?
- Is the content well executed?
- Is the content fun?
- Does the content make good use of the channel in which it appears (e.g., social, mobile, video)?
Marketers should base their magnetic content ideas on well-researched customer behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles.
Aha…publishing.
Who knew that publishing, one of the oldest marketing competencies, is new again. Long live publishing.
