Content as a business strategy

Did you know that 90% of brands now use content marketing? but whilst 9 out of 10 businesses use content marketing, only 3 out of 10 are seeing any real success from it.

The reason? Content marketers usually start with a product or a service and then create content related to that product or service in the hope that the audience can be made to care enough about it to eventually buy something.

Joe Pulizzi asks what if they didn’t? What if they started with content that an audience is passionate about – and then figured out how to get value from that content later on? It’s an interesting concept but actually requires a complete mindset change when it comes to thinking about content marketing and business strategy. This version of content marketing not only requires content to be given a strategic role in business, but it is also given the time, space and goal of developing into an additional revenue stream in its own right. It sounds all well and good but telling people that the content marketing they’re already doing is no longer a tactic to hit a sales target but rather an overarching business strategy that builds an audience over time to deliver sustainable long-term growth is probably not going to go down so well in the next quarterly planning meeting.

Realistically, most marketing managers can’t suddenly switch off the day-to-day sales support they offer because they’re too busy cultivating an audience that’s interested in something else. The great thing is a content-first strategy doesn’t have to be an exclusive philosophy – you can start to develop a longer-term content strategy for your business now and that will provide a big strategic advantage in years to come.

Introducing the Content Inc Model: 

Find a sweet spot – and then do a content tilt 

The ‘sweet spot’ is where passion and expertise intersect with things your target market care about but don’t have a lot of information on.

Joe Pulizzi makes the point that you have to commit to your sweet spot, and that your content has to provide a sustainable point of difference from your competition. (He uses the example of the Chicken Whisperer, who built a multi-platform media brand out of his passion for teaching and working out how to keep chickens in his backyard).

Once you’ve found your sweet spot, you have to tilt your content – approaching it in a new and unique way that ensures your content stands out from the crowd. Ann Reardon has gone from 100 YouTube subscribers to 2 million in just three years by featuring seemingly impossible recipes including a cake that includes a ridiculous amount of snickers bars and cakes that look like the Instagram logo – crazy creations no one else would think to make.

Know your content mission – and target one audience at a time

When you’re creating a content-first business, you have to think like a media brand – there is a clear audience-centered mission for the content produced. They know which audience they’re targeting, what they deliver and what the outcome will be. Knowing exactly what your content exists to do is the key to building a trusted brand and developing an on-going relationship.

Build a base through consistency

Content-first is a strategy, not a marketing tactic. You need clarity on the purpose of your content and consistently deliver it so your audience knows what to expect from you.

Harvest your audience

Aim to build up a base of subscribers that you can talk to directly (through an email newsletter, for example) when you need to. Make sure that your email newsletter, podcasts and downloadable resources are worth them sharing their details for. You have to focus on what that audience’s on-going experience of your brand is. Connecting to your audience on social media e.g. LinkedIn is a great starting point for taking ownership of that audience but remember email is still really the only tool where people rather than algorithms are in control.

Measure the difference between subscribers and non-subscribers

Firstly, you have to create value for your audience before you extract value from them. Building up a base of loyal subscribers is itself a form of value for your business, providing you know how to measure it. More loyal customer behavior creates opportunities for new product and service development through feedback which in turn leads to increased sales, a solid base of subscribers is also a fantastic asset for targeting future advertising and provides bespoke data that will give you a powerful advantage over the competition, not to mention huge cost saving for your marketing going forward.

Conclusion

Pre 1990s there were only 8 channels for people to get information from, so within reason, people were forced to listen to what companies had to say. In today’s online universe, there are seemingly unlimited channels for companies to publish on and for people to get information from. This means we live in a world driven by attention economics – a wealth of information drives poverty of attention – and thus people can ignore you at will.

Content-first is a provocative and powerful concept. Not every brand can turn itself into the Chicken Whisperer or Ann Reardon overnight – but every brand can benefit from having a clear strategy for building an audience and where their content assets sit in the marketing mix.

Source: Content Inc by Joe Pulizzi.