Can content marketing help you emerge stronger from this mess?

The COVID-19 crisis has been a traumatic process for us all to cope with. But as many businesses begin to look beyond crisis management to opportunities for rebuilding, what role can content marketing play? Fraser Allen looks at what content marketing is, how it can help your business, and some of the pitfalls to avoid.

Many people who work in content marketing have a secret fear. They live in terror of someone asking them what ‘content marketing’ actually means. 

The reason for the confusion is that ‘content marketing’ covers a lot of ground. A few years ago, there were ad agencies, PR companies, contract publishers, direct mail specialists, digital agencies and several other marketing-related disciplines. But now many of these agencies describe what they do as ‘content marketing’.

As a result, there is a huge variety in the skills and specialisms offered by content marketing consultancies. To give a simple example, some of these agencies are great at creating the content (writing blogs, producing videos, developing thought leadership content etc.) whereas others are much better at the marketing side (such as the distribution and the SEO). This makes it confusing for clients wondering which agencies to approach for a project.

So how would I define it? Good content marketing is about creating powerful stories that will encourage your target audience to sit up and take notice. Your story may make your audience laugh, make them feel emotional, or simply help them to do something they’re interested in. And weaved within that story will be subtle messages about your brand and what you can offer. Done well, it will build interest in your brand, encourage customer loyalty and drive revenue.

In terms of distribution, content marketing comes in many forms, such as web content, social media, video, and more traditional media such as journals, magazines and white papers.

The phrase first emerged in the US in the 1990s and was championed by a guy called Joe Pulizzi. He established the Content Marketing Institute, held grandstand events that brought agencies and brands together, and wrote several books. The phrase caught on and, when I was a member of the UK’s Association of Publishing Agencies, I remember lively discussions that led it to rebrand as the Content Marketing Association.

Of course content marketing, like most things, is nothing new. Often quoted early examples include a magazine for farmers called The Furrow, launched by John Deere in 1895 – and the Michelin Guide, which was launched in 1900. And it goes back much further than that. If you could jump into a time machine and wander up to someone selling vegetables in a medieval market, they would very probably be sharing cooking tips and gossip with their customers. That’s content marketing at its purest – building commercial relationships by providing something useful and interesting.

The COVID-19 crisis has been a traumatic process for us all to cope with. A lot of the usual phases associated with trauma have been clearly visible and written large – we’ve seen shock, anger and fear, and that will continue for some time. However, a lot of brands are now looking beyond crisis management to what lies ahead – and how they can reinvent themselves to embrace new opportunities that will emerge despite (or because of) the continued economic upheaval.

The businesses that act now to put compelling brand stories up there will have the best chance to rebound out of the crisis. For instance, I’ve recently been working with the Edinburgh-based digital agency xDesign. They have been bold in terms of using this time to unearth stories about their incredibly talented team members and share their knowledge at a time when many people are keen to increase their understanding of digital platforms and communications.

They've also been creating powerful stories from scratch. For instance, they offered to create a symptom tracker app for NHS 24 to take pressure off the organisation's call centres. They did this in just five days and did it for free. NHS 24 were delighted. It was a generous and valuable act – but it also made a powerful story for building xDesign’s profile with potential clients.

So how can you apply the benefits of content marketing to your business? Here are some ideas:

• Show you’re helping. Are you doing anything unusual to help customers, employees or anyone else during this crisis? And if not, is there something you could be doing? If so, you could create a great story, just like xDesign did.
• Share your knowledge. Do you have any expertise or knowledge that you could share via blogs, videos, newsletters etc? This is a time when a lot of people are looking for ideas and inspiration and, if you help them, it could well open up opportunities.
• Highlight your people. What about your team? Do you have people with outstanding achievements or skills that would make for an interesting story – whether it involves what they do at work, or beyond?
• Dig into your history. Does your business have an intriguing heritage? A lot of businesses neglect their own history despite the great stories that may lurk in the background and the opportunities to reinforce their brand. It may even prove a useful business tool. I recently interviewed Ross Mickel, who runs the longstanding family-run building business Mactaggart & Mickel – originally famous for building many of Glasgow’s original West End-tenements. They commissioned a book about the history of the business. He now refers to it as his ‘bible’ because, when confronted with a problem, he often finds that similar problems were encountered in the company’s past, with potential solutions lying in the pages of the book.
• Innovation is a good story. Are you sitting on some great stories about your products or services that a wider audience would find genuinely interesting? If so, get them out there.

These are just a few ideas. Once you get into the habit of being aware of the stories your brand holds, the tap will keep flowing.

There is a perception that content marketing is expensive. It certainly can be, with some big brands throwing a lot of money at it – but it needn’t be and really shouldn’t be. You can get powerful results with minimal outlay. The most important thing is to put plenty of thought into it upfront and come up with stories that your target audience will find genuinely interesting. One very cost-effective route for effective content marketing is to simply build a big network on Linkedin and regularly publish posts and articles that boost your profile.

The nature of your target audience will also determine the best way of reaching them. To use a financial services example, if you’re a private bank with older, traditional customers, a stylishly put together quarterly journal sent out in a hand-written envelope may be a good route. But if you’re a digital challenger bank, your focus will clearly be on digital content and social media.

And digital content offers so many proactive ways to market your content. For instance, you can use tools such as Semrush to discover the topics that people are searching for online – topics relevant to your brand that you can tap into by building those search terms into your content.

Pitfalls to avoid? Here are some:

• Dropping the ball. We’ve all seen blog pages that have a couple of posts from two years ago, and nothing else. Content marketing is something that has to be committed to and produced consistently. It needn’t be very time-consuming but it does need to be high up in a business's list of priorities.
• Too many cooks. If you’re in a big organisation with lots of stakeholders peering over your shoulder, you may have to fiercely protect a good content strategy to ensure it's not watered down by internal box-tickers and colleagues' egos.
• Forgetting the audience. Always keep the target audience firmly in mind – creating personas based on customer research can be a very good way of doing this. And keep challenging yourself as to whether what you’re producing is of interest to them.
• Slipping into cruise mode. Don't rest on your laurels – seek feedback, measure the success of what you’re doing and be prepared to adjust your content marketing strategy as you move forward, embracing the activity that works well (and weeding out the stuff that doesn’t). 

Want to hear more? In this recent podcast interview for Recruiting Future, I talk further about content marketing. And if you have any queries about using content marketing for your business, please do contact me.