Why Content Marketing (as a term) Is All the Rage
Posted on 01. Mar, 2012 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, content marketing, Custom Publishing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
NOTE: There have been a few articles recently (one on content marketing hype and one on the term ”content marketing” in particular) that motivated me to write this post.
In the Beginning, It Wasn’t Content Marketing
Back in 2001, I started selling content marketing services as part of Penton Media’s custom media division. For the most part, we sold custom magazines and printed newsletters to large B2B organizations. We were just beginning to sell things like online white papers and webinars.
At that time, there was no such thing as the term/phrase content marketing. Custom publishing had always been the term for what is now the content marketing industry. In the late 90s, custom media started to replace custom publishing as the industry term in response to the digital content phenomenon.
We at Penton Custom Media, as a group, believed in the idea that marketing should be an asset and that delivering original, relevant information to customers was critical. Yes, there was a place for advertising, but we sold on the idea that when the advertising worked, buyers wanted more information. Without that critical information that would help buyers make decisions, the buyer may end up going elsewhere or relying on someone else for their informational needs. We also believed that customer retention was the most under-served part of the marketing goal set, and that consistent content to customers (ala a media company) was the answer to turn customers into evangelists for the brand.
That said, this was a new concept to most of our customers, even though the idea of brands telling stories have been around for centuries.
Selling Content
Content marketing was never an easy sell. 10 years ago, senior marketers were still enthralled with the banner, the button and the direct email. Content creation was literally the last thing on their mind.
But we persevered. When we used the phrase “custom publishing” marketers thought print or books.
Custom media, custom content? Can you be more specific?
Brand journalism…hey, we’re not publishers. Corporate content/media…is that for the employee magazine?
Customer media…that’s so European.
Brand storytelling…is this fiction?
It was truly a sales challenge because our industry went by dozens of names and it took so long to explain what the heck we were actually selling.
Content Marketing – Maybe
One day I was in a sales call and asked the VP of Marketing for a large manufacturing company, “What’s your content marketing strategy?” He looked a bit quizzical at me (as you can imagine), but leaned forward and asked “Can you explain?”
Ha, content marketing…we may be onto something.
“Content marketing is creating your own valuable, relevant and compelling content to position yourself as the true industry expert. When you do that, your prospects and customers trust you more and are more willing to buy from you. It’s almost like becoming the media company for your industry, but instead of selling advertising against your content, you are engaging customers with the belief that they will buy more of your products and services from you or create a better opportunity to keep them as customers. Content marketing can take many forms, like custom printed magazines, advertorials, white papers, print newsletters and even webinars and web content.”
Although this VP of marketing was intrigued, and even asked for a proposal, ultimately he didn’t buy content (He bought a 6x print advertising program instead). But, ultimately, I liked his response to the “content marketing”.
From 2001 to 2007 I continued to try a number of phrases and received different directions on sales calls. More and more, as the years went on, content marketing seemed to resonate more than the others. By 2005/2006, I began to believe that content marketing was going to be the industry phrase.
The Rise of Content Marketing
In 2007, when we launched what is now the Content Marketing Institute, we based the entire business model on the belief that content marketing would become the phrase for organizations acting like media companies. So, on April 26th, 2007, Why Content Marketing? was written as my first of over 600 blog posts.
Apart from some amazing good fortune and a boatload of content that we developed around the idea and practice of content marketing, I believe it became the industry term because:
- It’s simple (think Apple): “You mean marketing through the creation of content?” Most marketers could figure out the term with just a few seconds of thought.
- No baggage: Custom publishing, custom media and even brand journalism created sometimes negative or completely wrong notions of what the industry was. Content marketing was a fresh new phrase that had no negative past to it.
- It contained “marketing”: People with marketing titles pay more attention to anything with the word “marketing” in it.
I’ve read a dozen posts about how content marketing as a phrase isn’t the right term or that the idea of an industry term for what we do is just silly. My contention is that, even through content marketing has been around for hundreds of years, one of the reasons it didn’t move faster as a core marketing discipline was because marketers simply couldn’t have an intelligent conversation about it. Since everyone was calling it something different, progress was hard to come by (think Tower of Babel).
Content Marketing vs. Custom Publishing Search Trends Over the Years
The Industry Is Growing…Together
Regardless of whether you love or hate the term content marketing, the industry is coming together and we are learning the discipline together (see this Altimeter content marketing report and this CMI/MarketingProfs report for more). Yes, we have a long way to go, but we are all headed in the right direction. And the amazing news is, even though we have come so far so fast, if content marketing were a baseball game, we’d just be getting out of the dugout for the first inning. The new marketing department is now part marketing, part publishing. This type of evolution will take some time, especially for very large organizations.
From my blog post five years ago:
One thing is for sure, it is the organizations, not individual users or publishers, that have the greatest opportunity (and possibly learning curve) to create valuable content that makes an impact on people. Smart organizations are doing it now. More will come. Things are going to get interesting.
On with the content marketing revolution!
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
The original post is titled Why Content Marketing (as a term) Is All the Rage , and it came from The Content Marketing Revolution .
Google Will Be the Largest Content Producer in Three Years
Posted on 06. Oct, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, Branded Content, content marketing, Custom Publishing, predictions, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
A decade ago when I worked for Penton Media, Google was a hot topic. To partner or not? Do we open up our web content to Google’s spiders?
It seems a silly discussion today, but it was big business then. Publishers and editors were of the mindset that Google was somehow stealing their content by indexing it and serving it up to Google’s search engine.
As more publishers realized the number of relevant readers they were getting to their websites, Google turned from axis to ally.
So with publishers on board about the possibilities that Google could bring them (in both traffic and Adsense sales), it set the stage for Google’s growth.
In 2010, Google did almost $30 billion in revenue and $8.5 billion in profit. They have $34 billion in short-term investments and cash-on-hand.
And Google continues to be the place where people find stuff. They are the problem solver. They link people to other people’s content, spatter it with a bit of advertising, and make a ton of money doing it.
Google Is Changing The Model
For all of its amazing innovations such as Google Voice, Google Apps and even their Android platform, the large majority of Google’s revenue still comes from Adsense. The product diversification has happened, but the revenue results are lagging. For those of you who understand the stock market, Google trades at a PE Ratio of 12.3, a historic low. This means that investors look at Google as more a value play and not a growth stock any longer.
So where does Google go from here?
Ah yes, to Content.
I need to find something. I go to Google. I do a few searches on Google. I click on a link. After that, for the moment, Google loses me as a revenue opportunity.
But what if?
I need to find something. I go to Google. I do a few searches on Google. I click on a link. That link is a piece of Google content (video, textual, audio, etc.). Google monetizes that content through more advertising and sponsorship.
Yep, this is the future. Heck, it’s the present. The clear start of this was Google’s purchase of restaurant-review media company Zagat a few months ago. No one made a peep. Everyone seemed happy.
And now, according to the Wall Street Journal, Google is putting up $100 million to create content for its YouTube franchise. Google is the publisher investing in content in order to monetize that content on the back-end through sponsorship.
In a matter of just a few weeks ($125 million investment in Zagat and a $100 million YouTube content investment), Google has become one of the largest publishers on the planet. And now there is no stopping them.
What Should You Expect from Google?
Regarding content, here are just a few possible events that shouldn’t surprise you over the next few years:
- Google will provide customized content for both brands and media companies.
- Google will start purchasing the leading niche providers of content in multiple verticals.
- Google will begin to hire journalists and content creators of all types to provide content for all Google platforms.
It makes too much sense. Google can stay with the consumer throughout the purchase cycle.
I’m not saying that this is good or bad, I’m just making the point that this is happening…and that this will affect content creators (media-side and brand-side) in all industries and verticals. Google will be the largest content producer on the planet. We need to start preparing for this now.
Announcing Custom Media Day: An Event Only a Custom Content Provider Would Love
Posted on 14. Jul, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, Custom Publishing, Junta 42, Junta42 Events, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Take a deep breath…this post is NOT about Content Marketing World 2011.
I get at least an email per day from a custom content provider or content agency looking for an event that is just for them. Well, Custom Media Day is here – July 27, 2011 in New York City.
The Content Marketing Institute, Junta42 and the Custom Content Council are partnering on this day-long educational/networking event specifically designed for custom media executives, salespeople, editors and project managers. Each and every session is focused on helping custom content agencies and freelance content providers get more out of their business, including sessions on:
- The Latest Custom Media Research
- Web Content Strategy
- Social Media, LinkedIN/Google+ and SEO
- Content Syndication
- Gamification Custom
- Content Sales Techniques
- and more (much more).
See the full agenda here. Hope to see all you custom content professionals there.
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