Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Joe Pulizzi is founder and chief content officer for Junta42, the leading online resource for content marketing.

Newt Barrett is president of Content Marketing Strategies, a firm that helps businesses market their products and services through relevant content.

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Contents

Chapter One

We're not in the business of keeping the media companies alive ... we're in the business of connecting with consumers.

—Trevor Edwards Corporate vice president for global brand and category management, Nike, Inc.

Nike and other huge companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and General Motors are all moving away from the basic advertising and sponsorship strategies that helped make their brands as well known as they are today.

That's a frightening proposition for both major media organizations and established brands. It's hard to fathom that the once-coveted marketing strategies that vaulted the best of brands to the top are becoming obsolete. Once you get over the initial shock that the world we live in has changed, you realize that this is perhaps the greatest marketing opportunity we have ever seen for brands in both the business-to-business and the business-to-consumer markets.

We are seeing nothing less than a marketing tsunami that is affecting businesses of every size, regardless of what they're selling. Prospects are simply not responding to the kinds of marketing that have worked for decades. So most marketing organizations are asking, "What now?"

Beginning to Tell the Story

"We want to find a way to enhance the experience and services, rather than look for a way to interrupt people from getting to where they want to go," says Stefan Olander, global director for brand connections at Nike. "How can we provide a service where the customer says, 'Wow, you really made this easier for me!'?"

Olander's comment reflects buyers' increasing dislike of interruption marketing—those incessant advertising messages that stream and scream at people in print, on the radio, on TV, and even on the Internet—or, essentially, anything that tries to take their attention away from the content they really want to engage with.

Big brands from around the world have realized that they need to market to their customers in a different way. The proof is in the dollars. The New York Times notes, "The 25 companies that spent the most on advertising over the last five years cut their spending last year in traditional media by about $767 million, according to Advertising Age and TNS Media Intelligence." During the first six months of 2007, those same companies decreased their media spending an additional 3 percent, or $446 million, to $14.53 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

But those marketing dollars haven't disappeared. They are moving in different directions, many of which are content marketing initiatives, in which money is being spent on custom magazines, newsletters, Webcasts, content for Web sites, blogging, social content efforts, and other such activities. In fact, ContentWise (formerly Publications Management), a research-based newsletter covering the content marketing industry, found that more than 25 percent of corporate marketing budgets is now being dedicated to some type of content marketing activity. And this number is growing. A recent IBM Global Solutions survey found that advertising executives plan to shift approximately 20 percent of marketing funds from impression-based advertising to impact-based advertising over the next three years.

Blendtec, a manufacturer of (you guessed it) blenders, has had tens of millions view its "Will It Blend?" video series over the last few years. The thirty-second to two-minute videos show Blendtec founder Tom Dickson attempting to "blend" various items, including golf balls, a toilet plunger, and even an iPhone. According to Blendtec executive George Wright, retail sales have increased by more than 500 percent, which he attributes almost solely to the video series. Talk about return on investment! With less than $1,000 and a YouTube account, Blendtec is now perceived as the undisputable blending king. Smart marketers like Nike and Blendtec are beginning to understand that they need to be telling their own story. They are learning to create their own valuable and relevant content to enable their customers to join the conversation. They are also learning that it's hard to create meaningful relationships with customers through 30-second TV ads or radio jingles.

Nike's global sales have climbed from $10 billion to more than $16 billion in the last four years. And executives say that the company's new focus on telling a relevant content story is a major contributor to that trend. In other words, content marketing has had a lot to do with growing global sales by 60 percent in a four-year period. Nike, through microsites such as its customer experience site Nike+, is not just talking at buyers anymore, but rather conversing with them.

You don't have to have Nike's powerful brand, huge budget, and global reach, or even Blendtec's creativity, to embrace a content marketing strategy that will grow your customer base and drive increased revenues. In fact, start-ups, small and medium-size companies, associations, and nonprofit groups are all benefiting from rethinking how they market their products and services. Just as Nike and Blendtec have experienced significant growth in tandem with the development of a content marketing strategy, so, too, can you deliver top-line and bottom-line results for your company.

How Many Names Can One Industry Have?

As you become a content marketer, it's important for you to realize where this industry came from. Many marketing professionals and publishers recognize the term custom publishing, which in the last few years has become the most popular term for the industry. John Deere is often credited with producing the first actual custom publication/content marketing device when it launched its newsletter, The Furrow, in the late 1800s. Yet, even though this industry is more than a century old, most marketers recognize it as young. While we will adapt to any term that promotes business content initiatives, our research indicates that custom publishing is an often misunderstood term. Most marketers and publishers perceive custom publishing as referring mostly to custom magazines, newsletters, and other customized print initiatives, thus downplaying the huge increase in online branded content. Actually, in a small research project we conducted with approximately 100 marketers and publishers in May 2007, most respondents chose to use the terms content marketing and custom media for the delivery of valuable, targeted business content.

Who knows which phrase will stick with people? Frankly, it doesn't matter. We chose content marketing because it seems to be the term that's most understandable to marketing professionals. It's the blend of both content and the marketing of that content that enables customer behavior. But just in case, we've provided a list of relevant terms that are often interchanged with content marketing. You probably know a few more:

• Content marketing

• Custom publishing

• Custom media

• Corporate content

• Corporate media

• Custom content

• Branded content

• Branded editorial

• Branded editorial content

• Branded storytelling

• Information marketing

• Advertorial

• Private media

• Customer publishing

• Customer media

• Contract publishing

• Corporate publishing

• Corporate journalism

• Member media

• Info-content

Regardless of which name you associate with it, content marketing is here to stay and may very well be the biggest opportunity your organization has to communicate with your customers as never before. That means that you need to take very specific and strategic steps, not only within your marketing, but within your culture, to take advantage of this opportunity.

Chapter Two

The shift to content marketing didn't just happen. It's been naturally progressing for years, ultimately reaching a "perfect storm" environment that sets the stage for this new kind of marketing. Here are six fundamental reasons why organizations are shifting, or must shift, their marketing efforts from interruption marketing to content marketing.

1. Change in Buyer Attitudes toward Traditional Media and the Credibility of Content

Today's Internet-savvy consumers look everywhere for essential content that will enable them to make smart buying decisions. In the last few years, buyers' behavior has changed dramatically. Your customers are now increasingly knowledgeable about what they want to buy. They aren't surfing aimlessly, hoping to be influenced by marketing messages that arrive from out of the blue. And they aren't sitting around waiting to hear from you. They have no time to waste, and they deeply resent unwanted advertising messages. In short, buyers don't want to be sold. They want to make up their minds based on their own information gathering. Therefore, buyers need content that makes them smarter and more knowledgeable. Businesses that provide that content will win.

Moreover, as long as they get their answers, today's buyers don't care where the content comes from. They are open to learning from and acting on high-quality content, whether it comes from media veterans such as Condé Nast, NBC, CNN, or NPR—or from a custom publication, a newsletter, a company Web site, a favorite blog, or an RSS feed. That's bad news for traditional media.

David Levin, CEO of United Business Media, which owned the formerly named CMP Media in the United States, recently stated that "magazines as a vehicle for on-time delivery of news are clearly dead."

This seems obvious, since the just-in-time news outlets are growing on a daily basis, but what is not as obvious is the increasing number of news and informational resources that are coming from businesses, not from traditional media companies. According to Alexa.com, 6 of the top 10 most trafficked Web sites are either social media or branded-content sites such as YouTube. It is on many of these sites that businesses are marketing and creating their own content.

Search engines such as Google have democratized content to such an extent that anyone who has a little good content and a bit of search engine savvy can get his content on the first page. Buyers want information fast, and search engines help them get it. All of this means that you have the opportunity to replace formerly vital media choices with your own high-quality content. You can be timely, considered, and reasoned. Your company can become the new thought leader among your many prospects who are completely open to great content from new sources.

2. Traditional Media Sources Can't Be Counted on to Assist You in Reaching Your Customers

In the past, publishing companies drew their strength from their unique ability to deliver target demographics for a myriad of definable markets. They invested millions of dollars in developing high-quality circulation that closely matched advertisers' marketing targets. They were able to tell advertisers exactly who read the publication, what kind of company these people worked in, what types of products they bought, and how much money they spent each year on those products.

Just one look at what's happening in the newspaper industry tells the tale for the fate of traditional media. Daily newspaper readership has plummeted between 1970 and 2006, according to the Newspaper Association of America (see Figure 2.1).

As of 2006, only 35 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds were daily newspaper readers. November 2007 saw reports of continued drops in circulation averaging 2.5 percent for the top 538 U.S. dailies, as reported by the New York Times. Some of the biggest suffered even worse declines:

• The New York Times daily circulation fell 4.51 percent to 1,037,828, and Sunday circulation plunged 7.59 percent to 1,500,394.

• The Washington Post daily circulation was down 3.2 percent to 635,087, and Sunday circulation was down 3.9 percent to 894,428.

• The Boston Globe daily circulation tumbled 6.6 percent to 360,695, and Sunday circulation fell by about the same amount, 6.5 percent, to 548,906.

According to IBM and the University of Bonn, 71 percent of consumers use their PC for more than two hours per day during their personal time, as opposed to 48 percent spending that much time watching TV. The trends continue to show that traditional vehicles are getting less share of voice, which means that they will be less helpful in getting your message in front of your customers (regardless of customer behavior changes).

Do Marketers Know More about Buyers than Media Companies Do?

While magazines, newspapers, and TV offer less and less reach to buyers, disenchanted advertisers have built substantial databases of customers and prospects.

Smart companies of every size are using database technology to capture very detailed information about their customers and prospects, including all-important e-mail addresses. In fact, many companies today have much better buyer information in their customer relationship management (CRM) systems than do the publications trying to sell them advertising.

In fact, a former trade magazine chief editor confided that a prospective advertiser had four times as many qualified prospects in its customer database as the publication had in its circulation records. This four-to-one advantage left little incentive for the prospect to spend advertising dollars with this publication.

Within your market niche, you may well have access to more and better buyer data than your traditional media partners have. You should consider targeting your database with focused content marketing efforts. That makes for a cost-effective way to reach and interact with your very best prospects. Eliminate wasted distribution. Create precise content marketing campaigns for well-defined sets of buyers.

3. Shrinking Media Company Budgets Reduce Content Quality

Corporations often have bigger budgets and more resources to find and pay for the best research and content in the markets they serve. Unfortunately, too many media companies have been cutting both research and editorial budgets. Layoffs, pay cuts or freezes, and mass reorganizations are now commonplace within the traditional media environment. The worldwide recession has only made this a more frequent occurrence.

Media companies in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets are facing a downward spiral in which reduced advertising revenues lead to cutbacks in editorial staff and editorial pages, and in the circulation size of their magazines and newspapers.

Folio, a company that reports on the magazine and media industry, showed these headlines in its November 2008 e-newsletter:

• Forbes Restructures, Cuts 43

• B-to-B Publishers Seeing 2009 Advertising Contracts "Disappear"

• Hanley Wood Cuts 20

• Layoffs at Texas Regional D Magazine

• Scholastic Begins Hiring Freeze; 110 Accept Retirement Package

• Time Inc. Restructuring to Cost $100M

• More Layoffs: Hearst Makes Companywide Cuts

The decline in newspaper circulation, ad revenues, and staffing size is well documented. Among the many reasons for these multiple, interrelated declines is the fact that young people have deserted newspapers for multiple venues on the Internet. Studies show that the average age of a newspaper reader today is 60, which is not the ideal demographic for most organizations.

In a 2005 post on the Newsosaur.com blog, Allan Mutter opined: "The decline in circulation, while no cause to rejoice if you love newspapers, could be a sign that publishers increasingly understand the need to scale circulation down to a core level of committed, valuable readers." He also warned that "shrinking circulation isn't necessarily a bad thing—as long as it stops real soon." Unfortunately, over the last two years, circulation has continued to decline. In October 2007, Mutter said: "But the good news for publishers—that no one is demanding their liquidation any more—is also bad news, because it means they will be stuck tending to the massive and sofar insoluble problem of cauterizing the sales losses that have eroded profits at a quickening pace for the better part of two years." As bad as it is for the giants—the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor (now gone in print), and the Washington Post—things are even grimmer for local newspapers such as the venerable Akron Beacon Journal, whose business section is gone on weekdays but survives on Saturdays and Sundays.

"We were one of the last papers to put the majority of stocks online. That's where the users are," said Bruce Winges, vice president and editor of the Akron Beacon Journal. "If I had my druthers, of course I would want a stand alone business section. I don't think the quantity or the quality of our business reporting has gone down, but the perception of the reader is that they have lost something."

Continued Cutbacks Reveal Significant Opportunity

We could go on at length about the decline in traditional media outlets, but the real story here is the significant opportunity for non-traditional content creators to fill the void. Traditional media are suffering because the business models have changed, not because there is less information needed in the world. Actually, buyers need more information than ever. If Time Inc., the New York Times, or your industry trade magazine is not going to provide it, who will?

Businesses are beginning to understand that today's marketing is a whole lot like publishing. The quality of many corporate publications and content Web sites today is excellent and ever-improving. If the trend continues at this rate, the quality of these vehicles will eventually surpass that of independently produced publications at some point in the future.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from GET CONTENT GET CUSTOMERSby Joe Pulizzi Newt Barrett Copyright © 2009 by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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