Content Marketing
What is content marketing?
We understand that the hard sell often results in no sale.
We also understand that traditional advertising often no longer cuts it. (Do you realise an industry standard response is reaching 15 out of 10,000 people exposed to an ad online – also known as a click-through rate of 0.15%? We don’t think that’s good enough.)
Those are just two reasons why content marketing is on the up and up.
Figures from the Custom Content Council and ContenWise put spend on this type of marketing in 2011 at $40.2bn – and it’s a number that is likely to keep on rising.
Collective Content works with you to harness this way of connecting with audiences. Apart from making use of online tools there is nothing new about it.
Michelin has done it for years with its restaurant guides. John Deere did it in the early part of the twentieth century with advice for farmers. American Express does it everyday now, wonderfully, with its OpenFORUM online community packed full of advice for small businesses.
And we are hardly the only company that says work with those who are former journalists.
It is no longer only newspapers that have an editor-in-chief. (Even Facebook and Tumblr have them.)
‘Chief Content Officer’ is one of the job titles of the year – often at large companies that are trimming their traditional advertising spend and investing in reaching customers directly, from their own websites and social media channels.
What Collective Content does
First, we explain. This often starts with showing you how leading companies are using content not just for PR or thought-leadership but to become more visible online, to develop long-term relationships and to become a trusted source – long before an audience member might be considered a lead or eventually a customer.
Then we develop a programme. Content marketing is a long-term undertaking. It isn’t about a three-month campaign. It’s about now until, well, forever.
It is important you plan, plan, plan.
We first help you realise the assets you have. This can be through a full content audit or something as simple as identifying people who can create your content – from the C-suite to customer service agents to external experts.
We then look at suitable channels. Social media is great – but you don’t own those channels.
Working with the media is often still advisable – but do your partners get this shift?
It is important that at the very least you fuel a blog on your own website, a blog that is updated regularly, a blog where each post counts. We make sure they do because we come from a world of daily deadlines, content planning and analysing the results of every piece of content. That’s not just blog posts (text, audio, video, infographic, other) but the shortest tweet to the longest e-book.
We either unlock all this potential for you as trusted consultants or run it for you, as a full-service content agency. We sometimes do both.
Need to know more about content marketing? Come back soon for our unique list of curated links about this hottest of subjects.
