31 March 2014 So It’s Called ‘Content Marketing’

Two years ago, almost exactly to the day, I wrote a post about making things for your customers.

“Build it and they will come.”

“I can’t help but think it’s a completely underrated and underused digital strategy. This idea of building something rad that’s relevant to your target audience and then using them to spread your idea.”

It turns that approach now has a name; content marketing. And while it’s quickly become 2014’s buzzword of choice, I think it’s still underrated and underused by clients.

These days I’d approach it pretty differently. More pragmatically. Segment the audience and understand their problems and needs. Then build things to solve those problems. Plan for distribution across bought, owned and earned media. And wrap it up by measuring and learning.

Where I think things become really interesting is when you move beyond ‘content’ in the traditional sense of the word. Then you start talking about interactivity through things like apps or games. You start thinking about utilities, education tools and even time-killers.

And if it works, then you role it out as a program, not a campaign. Regularly building and distributing highly targeted, highly relevant things that consumers will use.

Or in other words, making cool shit that people play with and share. Much more exciting than a banner ad.