content marketing
Content marketing is an approach to gaining and retaining customers by providing valuable and relevant information to the consumer rather than directly selling a brand’s product or service. In many cases, this information is about the brand’s products or services, but it may also be more general information related to the values of the brand and the lifestyles or needs of the customer. Marketing through display advertising, radio and television spots, or direct mail has become more challenging as audiences splinter across platforms or devise and take advantage of ways to bypass or completely ignore such traditional methods. Content marketing, meanwhile, strategically targets information that can be helpful and more credible to a particular consumer while still serving the brand by holding the consumer’s attention, engaging the consumer with the brand in a positive and credible way, and even inviting response or influencing purchase decisions.
Origins of Content Marketing
At one time, content marketing was described as custom publishing or sponsored programming. John Deere’s magazine, The Furrow, first published in 1895, and the Michelin Travel Guides, launched in 1900, are early examples of custom publishing that still build upon and enhance the values of their respective brands today. Martha White, a flour and baking-products company, was the sole sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry’s radio program for decades, with stars even singing the brand’s jingle on stage as a part of the show. In the early 21st century content marketing takes many forms, from custom magazines to promoted social media posts to YouTube channels, all devoted to branded lifestyle or informational content.
Marketers attempt to engage consumers at each of the four stages of the buying cycle: (1) awareness, (2) research, (3) consideration, and (4) purchase. Single-sponsored media projects such as the Michelin Guides continue to play an important role in building brand awareness. In the 20th century, however, marketers often relied on more direct advertising as consumers moved from researching products to considering a purchase. Early 21st-century content marketers, responding to declining engagement with traditional advertising, increasingly integrated promotional goals into content designed to appear informative, journalistic, or entertaining. The content tends to make a stronger connection to features and benefits of a product or service, even if the source of the message is not always clear (i.e., not clearly published by or on behalf of the brand).
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Types of Content Marketing
Print and Digital Custom Publishing
If one approach to content marketing can be considered traditional, it is the creation of single-sponsor printed or digital material in a journalistic fashion, such as magazines or websites. This approach follows the form of news articles or narrative storytelling such as that found in feature-driven lifestyle magazines. Practitioners often call this form of content marketing brand journalism due to its similarities in execution to “straight” editorial. Such material is carefully targeted to customers and prospects via selective circulation in print, the purchase of search terms (keywords) on search engines, or the targeting of interests on social media platforms. Brands often offer such material to customers and prospects as a service exclusive to the brand. While Deere’s The Furrow remains one of the longest-running examples of this approach, there are thousands in the marketplace, from food brands that publish recipe magazines and websites to hotels that distribute slick, high-end travel guides. Some editorial magazines and websites may even help brands create and place advertorials, which look like articles but actually are paid advertisements; print publications have guidelines for such practices.
Video and Film
The explosion of user-generated content on the digital video platform YouTube helped lead brands to embrace the form. Similar to the print/digital article approach, branded videos are often more informational or entertaining than promotional. Popular consumer subject matter such as beauty tips and extreme sports are equally useful to video content marketers. Among the most successful examples are Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches and the YouTube channel of the energy drink Red Bull.
Social Media
While social media platforms often provide promotion opportunities for content marketers, such as links to branded articles elsewhere online, some apps such as Instagram are the terminal media platform for branded content. Brands may use the platform to simply share a photo or video designed to be consumed within the app itself or to share and promote content generated by its customers. An example of this approach is a photo contest with entries from customers that followers of the brand might see often on their social media feeds, thereby promoting brand awareness.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is the practice of creating and placing paid content that matches the look, the feel, and, sometimes, the voice of the surrounding editorial content. In some cases this paid content is virtually indistinguishable from editorial content. Critics argue that the benefits to marketers and media entities are offset by intentional deception of users/readers and, in turn, the potential degradation of a media entity’s overall editorial credibility. This practice is similar to advertorials in print, but media entities have self-regulated that approach to help consumers differentiate advertorials from editorial content. On digital platforms the difference is often hard to discern, prompting the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to issue guidelines for using native advertising on a variety of digital platforms.
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New Revenue and Jobs in Media
Some brands rely on media professionals for the creation of content marketing material. Therefore, content marketing has created new sources of revenue for media entities and the individual journalist alike. Writers and editors who report and analyze news and events might be called upon to produce content marketing as part of their duties at traditional media entities. Some media companies have entire departments that specialize in content marketing. The New York Times’ T Brand Studio is a multimedia content marketing agency that creates branded content across all media; some of it is even distributed on the paper’s editorial platforms. Many traditional editorial brands sell web links and space once occupied by traditional display advertising to content marketing. Meanwhile, advertising agencies, again responding to the decline in traditional methods, might choose to employ journalists as “storytellers” to help brands develop content as part of an overall marketing strategy.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.