Joe Pulizzi at the content marketing round table
Content has for many years been treated as the ugly duckling of the online marketing universe. Today, however, this seems to have changed. Or better, I maybe should say “it starts to change” because every day again I have to notice how companies succumb for the old ways of push marketing under pressure of internal silo-driven personal short-term priorities.
An increasing number of marketers fortunately has understood how “users”, “prospects”, “leads”, “recipients”, “suspects”, “relations” or simply people and their emotional and individual needs, digital signals, social information-gathering processes and buying journeys define what works and what doesn’t. Content is part of all these needs and processes.
Content, conversations, language, conversion and stories are all part of the same equation with the people behind the customer data, email addresses and social connections in the middle where meaning is born.
As such, content has no meaning. It only does when it fits in the context of the social persona, the individual connection and relation and the business goal. In a social context, content plays a crucial role in stories and word of mouth. However, it’s a mistake to confuse content with stories. Good storytellers do not equal good content producers. Content leads to stories when the networks and ecosystems it touches decide so.
Those who provide pertinent content in a creative way and depending on the customer or prospect, his preferences and buying journey have an enormous, competitive advantage.
Moreover, those who allow the channel agnostic customer to determine the ways, timing and frequency of content, context and carriers himself, have an additional advantage.
B2B and B2C: it’s all just people-to-people
And it’s not only in B2B: the same relationship marketing principles we know from B2B marketing are being increasingly applied in B2C marketing as well, as Bob Gilbreath (Chief Marketing Strategist at Bridge Worldwide and author of ‘Marketing With Meaning’) said during a small round table about content marketing I organized with him, a few partners and Joe Pulizzi (Junta42, Content Marketing Institute).
Or as David Sable, COO of Wunderman, told me; it’s B2P: business-to-people (and it has always been), illustrating it with a few nice personal experiences.
Bob Gilbreath
Content is finally receiving the attention it deserves and the old adage “content is king” is used everywhere. However, content is not really “king.” There is, first of all, the context within which content resides: the customer or prospect and his individual information and communication requirements. Simply said: people and their behavior and preferences. Again: both in B2B and B2C. It’s like David Sable also said: the person playing a game on Xbox Live can be the CEO of a major corporation. Context matters and context changes.
When talking about content marketing and content in context, we are, however, mostly talking about “inbound marketing” and lead nurturing and, indeed, often in a B2B marketing framework. There are some differences between both worlds and approaches, but they are disappearing fast and, yes, content is also crucial in B2C marketing and in branding. The role and impact shows how the lines between B2B and B2C marketing are blurring.
A brand is a story that takes on its own life
A brand is determined by a variety of factors. Some positioning, of course the people who represent the brand (in particular, those who come into contact with the customer and who doesn’t in this social day and age?) and the ecosystem surrounding the brand: media, partners and increasingly, the “people,” with the “empowered” customer at the forefront.
A brand is however also a matter of emotion, connection and perception. Is there a difference between emotion, brand perception and customer experience? Is there much difference between the decision to click or download and the decision to “follow” or like a brand?
Isn’t it all about emotions? And isn’t buying a very emotional process as well (even if we like to rationally “explain” why we buy something)? Finally, is there much difference between B2B and B2C in a connected world where it’s really all about people-centricity, experience, customer satisfaction and stories?
A brand is a story that takes on its own life. There are different ways to take this story, shape it and flesh it out. However, no matter how you look at it: ultimately, the content is a key initiator and enabler. The start and backbone of many great stories, brands and relationships. The latter are the goal, in B2B and B2C: no context = no customers = no retention. And then the words of Joseph Jaffe come to mind: retention is the new acquisition. So, no content, context and personal stories mean fewer sales and more effort. And soon no sales at all. We already sell less, people buy.
Content, context and connections: it’s about the people, stupid
Content is crucial in brand related but also in more lead nurturing and customer retention driven types of marketing.
A goal of content is to generate value and emotional connections for people through all the contact moments and touch points with the brand or the company. Another goal is to create an environment where stories are born and nurtured. Stories that define the brand and immerse the clients in them.
If you reflect over this you will notice that both goals really are one and the same. Every point of contact between the customer, prospect or simply a “person” without labels, and a company contributes to the shape the story takes: customer experiences, relevant marketing dialogues, etc.
In order to tell a story and to spread it, content must be more than just relevant. It has to provide a strong emotional connection between brand and company.
Content is more than how we traditionally look at it (texts, videos, presentations, papers, etc.). It also includes the images and experiences surrounding our brand. And even the ads that people are confronted with are content and part of the story.
Many purists draw a line between ‘content’ and ‘advertising’. Such a demarcation is maybe not necessary. We are talking about emotions, stories and brands. We are talking about relevance and experiences.
It’s not the content that matters nor the channel. And, indeed not the fact whether it’s B2B or B2C.
It’s the result, both for our businesses and customers, in the largest possible sense of the word, and thus the relational and business context across all touch points and ecosystems around our brand, the people representing it and those interacting with it.
About J-P De Clerck
