Content marketing - a new specialism?

The Internet is probably currently responsible for creating more specialist jobs than any other business sector. Today there are niche specialities – SEO, usability testing, hosting, CMS software, social media consultants and now content marketing specialists. Ten to fifteen years ago our task then was explaining to clients that the Internet could provide a useful addition to their marketing communications programme. Many SMEs countered with the response that none of their competitors had a web site and their customers had never asked for one anyway. Back then there was an education job to do while building a web site was a collaboration between designers and programmers. In fact a typical approach was for a designer to produce the ‘look’ for the home page and how it should be applied to inside pages before the programmer coded, built and tested the site. As an Account Director it was immediately obvious that before these functional aspects could be addressed there was a need to plan the site architecture and most importantly create the content. The first was quite easy – the content however was usually a major challenge. A typical company web site is basically a distillation of what the company is about – what it does, who they are, what they sell, how to buy – but at that time the businesses I dealt with typically only had some sales leaflets and not much else. It often required meetings to identify basic facts about the company and cause them in turn to rethink what they were actually doing. It should have been amazing how little most executives understood about their business when it came to key facts, but experience showed it was commonplace. Even products were a challenge, for example one company marketed a range of floor cleaning machines that used cleaning fluids. In theory a lucrative range of consumables that could easily be sold online, but at the time relied on a storeman simply sending out stock only if asked in whatever container was to hand. There was no real process in place, no part numbers, no pricing and no packaged product so an important business opportunity was largely missed. Of course developing a web site while at the same time creating content that in turn requires creating business structures and systems can be a lengthy process. And of course adding emerging content as it became available was a poor way to deliver web sites on budget and on time. Clients simply do not understand that their lack of information is relevant. Although we tried to create and get signed off all content before starting to build a web site, the theory was always better than the reality as material persistently came through in bits and pieces. Returning to the spawning of web site specialisms the term ‘content marketing’ as noted at the beginning of this piece has now entered the lists of expert consultants. One blog talks about creating ‘remarkable content’.

Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot says,

“

To be a successful marketer in today's society, you need to be half publisher and half traditional marketer. So your next hire, you might think, could be a writer, or a video producer, or a music producer, something like that, and you need to start creating remarkable content. You look at the people who really win on the internet, and who really win on Google, who rank very high on Google, its sites with lots and lots of pages inside of Google's index. So Google sort of looks at a website as, every page on a website is a unique little website that can rank for different keywords. So the key is, how do you get as much stuff in Google's index that's remarkable, that people are looking into it, that you can move up the rankings. So, we really encourage our customers to start creating remarkable content. And remarkable content spreads wildly on the internet. If you're creating boring content, it doesn't spread at all.

”

It echoes a theme we at Technical Marketing have long been espousing in less florid language, that interesting, relevant and helpful content is an important part of the marketing mix. Most companies simply do not have the time, or skills to produce their own content, so maybe it is the time of the Content Marketing Expert then.

Marketing through the credit crunch

Just as governments seem uncertain how to stop the descent into a global recession, so does the retail sector seem to be resorting to some strange marketing tactics. A ‘20% off ‘ sale a month before Christmas seems a desperate measure with the underlying suggestion that margins must have been more substantial than might have been previously inferred. The most curious promotion this week was a double whammy offer on Christmas Tree lights. Signage suggested that there were savings of up to 50% while the actual product was marked with far smaller cash savings. We picked up a box priced at around 10 pounds also marked with a previous price of a couple pound more. As it is still November one wonders when they were on sale at the higher price anyway. But stuck on each box was also a label for insurance. Although I thought it odd to advertise insurance on a ten pound box of lights, I was really surprised when a member of staff sidled up and pointed out what a great deal this was. For just 3 pounds we could insure the lights and get free replacement in event of later failure. My wife pointed out that she expected them to work and so did consumer laws. So the actual cost of purchase with insurance would have been more than the promised savings on previously displayed price. Marketing should be based on firmer foundations not flimsy gimmicks, but then hindsight is showing that the three great drivers of the British economy – retail, finance and housing – have all been based on overvalued propositions.