Content Marketing

Abstract

Content marketing is a form of advertising and product promotion that has existed in rudimentary form at least as far back as the late nineteenth century, but it has been revitalized by the popularity of the Internet, which provides a simple, global platform for worldwide content distribution. In essence, content marketing differs from traditional marketing in its value proposition—that is, what it offers to the consumer. Traditional marketing functions by creating a need and then convincing consumers that they have this need. Content marketing develops a commodity that consumers want and draws consumer attention to the products.

Overview

Content marketing is an intriguing approach to building a customer base and maintaining it over a long period of time. Traditional marketing uses a broadcasting strategy in which the target audience for a product is seen as being scattered throughout the general population and therefore difficult to communicate with directly. When marketing teams operate under this paradigm, they usually conclude that the best way to convey their message to the target audience is by broadcasting it to as much of the general population as can be reached, given the limits of their budget, their schedule, and the available technology. This has traditionally included advertising across all forms of media, from print and radio to television, street signs, and the Internet, to the point that advertising has become so ubiquitous that people often fail to notice it even when it is staring them in the face.

Traditional marketing does not come cheap—billions are spent each year to promote everything from diapers to solar panels. However, marketers have realized that there are a number of problems with this approach, aside from the significant expense it entails: The public becomes desensitized to it, many people are bombarded by messages that they have no interest in, and above all else it is inefficient because it communicates a message intended for a few to everyone (Odden, 2013).

Content marketing provides an alternative to this model. Instead of sending a marketing message out to everyone, the idea behind content marketing is to create some type of resource—the content—that will attract those who are interested in the resource and cause them to build a stronger connection with the company or product. The content can take almost any form and is usually chosen based upon the resources that are available, the nature of the product or service being promoted, and the interests of the target audience. Content marketing for senior citizens generally does not involve the intense use of complex technology, for example, because many older people are not comfortable with computers and the Internet.

Some content used for marketing takes the form of a monthly magazine; an online forum; a smartphone application that people download, install, and use; or an online service that people sign up for. In fact, many of the Internet-based services that people use on a daily basis are actually complex forms of content marketing, disguised as free services. These include free online e-mail services, file storage services, online calendar and productivity suites, and many more. Companies offering these services do so not out of a purely charitable impulse, but as a way to encourage potential customers to “buy into their ecosystem.”

Buying into an ecosystem means that if someone is using Company X’s “Xmail” service for their e-mail and they then find a need for online file storage also, the first option they consider will probably be “Xdrive” because it is offered by a company that they recognize and trust with their communications already. During the dot-com boom of the early part of the twenty-first century, free online services proliferated, offering contact management, calendars, e-mail, and even photo storage (Syzdek, 2014). Some of these services survived and grew, boasting millions of users. They also generated billions in advertising revenue, because such services are typically tied into pay-per-click advertising mechanisms that provide the funding needed to support the platform.

Many people have come to rely on these services in their daily lives, yet they do not realize that by using the service they are benefiting the company that supports it, even if not through a direct payment. A phrase often used to describe this situation is, “If you are not paying for it, then you are the product.” This sums up many of the essential features of content marketing: It is essentially an exchange of value-bearing commodities. The customer receives the content, whatever form it happens to take, while the company receives the customer’s time and attention (and perhaps loyalty). Provided that customers are aware that they are giving at the same time that they receive, there is nothing inherently wrong with this type of transaction.

The character of a content marketing campaign is determined largely by the purpose for which the campaign is undertaken. Some content marketing is created in order to establish a community of users for the first time, bringing together people from disparate locations to share their common interests (Forouzandeh, Soltanpanah & Sheikhahmadi, 2014). In other cases, content marketing has been used even though there is an existing base of users; in these situations content marketing tends to appear as an added feature that has the unspoken purpose of either recruiting new users or making the existing base of users more diverse. Where a company’s product has mostly been used by middle-aged consumers, that company might develop and release a free smartphone application tied to the product as a way of appealing to younger consumers and bringing them into the user community.

Content marketing can even play a role in increasing customers’ respect for and faith in the product, by making the product appear more official and established. Some grocery stores have tried this approach by creating their own monthly or quarterly newsletters, which are then mailed to regular customers and contain information about new products, recipes, and similar types of content. Even to the seasoned and cynical consumer, this can create the impression that the store cares enough about its customers to produce this information and distribute it, and that the store is sophisticated enough to be able to provide this service in addition to simply selling groceries (Wylie, 2014).

Further Insights

Content marketing has grown rapidly since the dawn of the Internet, and this rapid growth has brought its share of challenges. The most pervasive challenge has been the widespread lack of expertise in media creation and distribution. To put this more plainly, most companies are experts at a particular type of service, whether that is making hamburgers or building jet engines. The company is extremely good at that one thing and not very good at anything else (Ahmad, Musa & Harun, 2016). Content marketing involves creating content that is interesting, useful, or otherwise engaging, and it often happens that companies face a steep learning curve as they explore what it means to create media that meets these user expectations.

As a result, many content marketing efforts have produced decidedly uninteresting content—glossy magazines full of tedious stories, poorly designed online portals and web-based services, and smartphone apps that barely function, much less do anything useful. Not surprisingly, these content marketing campaigns tend to have a negative effect, causing users to distance themselves from the company. Some companies have been quick to learn this harsh lesson, and as a consequence they have outsourced their content marketing efforts to firms that specialize in this area. Content marketing specialists are familiar with understanding a product and its target audience and then designing creative and effective ways to bring the two closer together (Pažėraitė & Repovienė, 2016).

As technology has grown more sophisticated, it has allowed companies to collect massive amounts of user data. This in turn has become increasingly important in driving marketing campaigns because of the insights into consumer behavior it can yield. Data has also informed content marketing. By incorporating original user or customer data in content marketing materials, a company can create durable, interesting data visualizations and graphics that provide value to consumers, enhance transparency about data use, establish or boost credibility, and open up new lines of inquiry for marketers (Samuel, 2015).

Specialists in content marketing continue to develop new and unexpected forms, as media and entertainment keep evolving. An example of this can be found in the relatively new phenomenon of video game play-throughs on online video streaming sites such as YouTube. In the early years after the invention of video games, people would purchase the games and play them on their gaming consoles or computers, without interacting with others. The Internet made it possible for people to play games online with others, with all players interacting in a shared online environment as they played the game. A huge part of the video gaming community involves people who, instead of playing the video game themselves, tune into a video streaming site to watch someone else—a “YouTuber”—play the game, while providing entertaining commentary (Holliman & Rowley, 2014).

This phenomenon seems to have developed on its own, but video game companies have been quick to capitalize on it by turning it into a content marketing platform in which the video game maker pays a famous YouTuber (some have millions of followers all over the world) to play the company’s game, with the goal of causing the YouTuber’s viewers to become interested in purchasing the game for themselves. The viewers receive what appears to them to be free entertainment, while the YouTuber is paid by the company, and the company receives increased awareness and interest in its products, which often translates into increased sales (Harad, 2016).

Issues

While there are many advantages to content marketing, there are also pitfalls that must be avoided. Perhaps the foremost of these is the possibility that the content that has been created may be interpreted by some as biased or misleading, resulting in accusations that misinformation or thinly disguised advertising is being distributed, rather than objective and useful information. This can lead to users of the content targeting the company as behaving dishonestly, which can have negative effects on all aspects of the company’s business and may erode the benefits of the content marketing campaign.

For example, if a manufacturer of personal electronics creates an online user community as part of its content marketing strategy, but then suppresses forum posts within this community that tout the advantages of other companies’ gadgets, users of the forum will quickly sour on the platform and either criticize it in other venues, cease to participate in it, or both. If content marketing is to be worth the effort, it must be authentic and it must provide something of real value to its target audience (Patrutiu Baltes, 2015).

In the example of the electronics forum, the company should realize that it has far more to lose by censoring the posts of its users than it does by allowing other electronics makers’ products to be discussed or even praised. If a number of customers use the forum to point out the ways in which competitors’ products exceed those of the firm hosting the forum, there are two ways for the firm to respond. First, it could see the posts as criticism that may cut into sales and that must therefore be suppressed. On the other hand, the more strategic interpretation is to view such postings as valuable customer feedback that is being collected at no cost, without the need to convene focus groups, send out market research surveys, or incentivize people to provide their views. The first interpretation is likely to lead the company into taking draconian actions that reflect poorly upon it, while the second can produce long-term benefits for the brand (Harad, 2013).

In addition to controversies over control and free speech, online forums used as content marketing must also be wary of the potential for liability that may arise from hosting the forum but failing to manage it appropriately. This can happen when users of the forum interact with one another in inappropriate ways, as when one user cyberbullies another. If the company that created the forum for content marketing purposes does not have adequate safeguards in place to protect users from this type of behavior, such as having forum moderators who can monitor users’ behavior to make sure that it remains civil, then there is the possibility that persons suffering a harm of some sort could see the company as being partially responsible in a moral or even in a legal sense. This is a danger faced by almost any kind of activity that relies upon crowdsourced content: Members of “the crowd” do not operate under the same types of controls and incentives as regular employees do, so there is the potential for their behavior to deviate from what is expected in polite society (Alsip, 2013).

Other end-user considerations in content marketing include the length of the company's written posts, the timing of delivery versus purchasing, and accessibility across electronic devices. Internally, there can be potential problems too. Focus on content marketing can lead companies to shift resources away from sales, or the departments may fail to communicate appropriately, leading to lost sales conversions or large amounts of marketing material going unused (Cespedes & Heddleston, 2018).

Terms & Concepts

Buyer Persona: A buyer persona is an imaginary personality used to describe one or more characteristics of a marketing plan’s target audience during the phase of marketing in which the market segment that will be concentrated upon is defined. Several different buyer personas may be used in conjunction with one another. For example, if the product being marketed is a microwaveable breakfast sandwich, then one buyer persona might be a thirty-four-year-old single mother of two school-aged children and a separate buyer persona might be a fifty-year-old married business executive. The advertising campaign would use these personas to describe their customers’ needs and priorities.

Content Management System (CMS): A content management system is a software service that stores, organizes, and facilitates distribution of digital information such as text, video, images, and audio files. A robust CMS is a critically important part of a content marketing strategy because it allows the value-added content to be stored and transmitted.

Crowdsourced Content: Crowdsourced content is content that is produced and contributed by a group of people interested in a particular product, service, or idea, as opposed to content that is developed by a company and presented to a group of consumers. An example of crowdsourced content might be a database of restaurant reviews where the reviews are all submitted by average customers rather than professional food critics.

Custom Media: Custom media are informational items that are produced in order to be offered to a set of current or potential customers for the purpose of increasing their engagement with the company or product. The most common examples of custom media are magazines published with a focus on an idea or ideas central to the mission of the publisher. A travel agency might create a travel magazine, a grocery chain might publish a recipe magazine, and so forth.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization is the practice of tailoring a company’s online presence (usually its website) to cause it to appear more prominently in search results when people look for information that might be related to the company’s products and services. For example, a company that sells canned pineapple could miss out on potential sales if its website does not include the keyword “fruit,” so SEO professionals would make sure that both “pineapple” and “fruit” are included on the company website so they can be indexed by search engines.

Target Audience: The target audience for a marketing campaign is the group of people that a marketing effort is intended to reach. A target audience is usually defined after market research has been conducted in order to find out which segments of the population express the most interest in the product. As an example, the target audience for advertising about men’s cologne might be urban youth between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, earning more than sixty thousand dollars per year and spending at least two hundred dollars per month on clothing.

Bibliography

Ahmad, N. S., Musa, R., & Harun, M. M. (2016). The impact of social media content marketing (SMCM) towards brand health. Procedia Economics & Finance, 37, 331.

Alsip, J. (2013). 3 keys for a successful content marketing campaign. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 12(2), 20. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=89421420&site=ehost-live

Cespedes, F. V., & Heddleston, R. (2018). 4 ways to improve your content marketing. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–5. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=129361347&site=bsi-live

Forouzandeh, S., Soltanpanah, H., & Sheikhahmadi, A. (2014). Content marketing through data mining on Facebook social network. Webology, 11(1), 1.

Harad, K. C. (2013). Content marketing strategies to educate and entertain. Journal of Financial Planning, 26(3), 18–20. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=86444581&site=ehost-live

Harad, K. C. (2016). Don’t avoid content marketing. Journal of Financial Planning, 29(7), 20–22. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=116592969&site=ehost-live

Holliman, G., & Rowley, J. (2014). Business to business digital content marketing: marketers' perceptions of best practice. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 8(4), 269.

Odden, L. (2013). Engaging more influencers and buyers with content marketing. Public Relations Tactics, 20(8), 18. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=101658770&site=ehost-live

Patrutiu Baltes, L. (2015). Content marketing - the fundamental tool of digital marketing. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Series V: Economic Sciences, 8(2), 111–118. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=112384428&site=ehost-live

Pažėraitė, A., & Repovienė, R. (2016). Content marketing elements and their influence on search advertisement effectiveness: Theoretical background and practical insights. Management of Organizations: Systematic Research, (75), 97–109. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=117016412&site=ehost-live

Samuel, A. (2015). Data is the next big thing in content marketing. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–5. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=118667399&site=bsi-live

Syzdek, N. C. (2014). Going native: Will content marketing work for you. Public Relations Tactics, 21(9), 14. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=101636346&site=ehost-live

Wylie, A. (2014). The awwwww factor: How content marketing messages go viral. Public Relations Tactics, 21(4), 7. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=95465050&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Iglesias, O., Ind, N., & Alfaro, M. (2013). The organic view of the brand: A brand value co-creation model. Journal of Brand Management, 20(8), 670.

Kuenn, A. (2016). Successful content marketing in 8 steps. Brand Quarterly, (24), 16–20. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=119802503&site=ehost-live

Metcalf, L. E., Neill, S., R. Simon, L., Dobson, S., & Davis, B. (2016). The impact of peer mentoring on marketing content mastery. Marketing Education Review, 26(3), 126–142. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=117575084&site=ehost-live

Murthy, A. (2011). Content marketing. PRIMA: Practices & Research in Marketing, 2(1), 31.

Rowley, J. (2008). Understanding digital content marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 24(5–6), 517–540.

Santos, M. (2016). Learning about content marketing. Sign Builder Illustrated, 30(254), 16–20. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=117049015&site=ehost-live

Satell, G. (2015). Why no one is reading your marketing content. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–5. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=118667666&site=bsi-live