Content is Not Marketing — It’s Communications

Your con­tent is not marketing.

If you’re a PR or com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­al like me, cre­at­ing online con­tent for brand chan­nels is an every­day con­cern. Stakeholders need con­tent; influ­en­cers need con­tent; the pub­lics need content.

It’s a nev­er-end­ing story, but it’s also fun. And most import­antly — it’s neces­sary for a digit­al-first society.

But the mar­ket­ing part… makes it less effect­ive. And less fun.

I’ve been pro­fes­sion­ally cre­at­ing online con­tent for 17+ years, and I find the mar­ket­ing part of con­tent mar­ket­ing to be one of the stu­pid­est ideas in cor­por­ate communication.

Why?

Keep read­ing to learn how to turn con­tent mar­ket­ing into con­tent com­mu­nic­a­tions and get bet­ter res­ults from your digit­al PR efforts.

Here we go:

The Confused State of Content Marketing

We live our lives on the money web now. I’m not against people mak­ing a liv­ing, but I’ve nev­er seen the point of blur­ring the lines between advert­ising and edit­or­i­als. Yes, I’m old-school PR; trust must be earned. Then you sell.

But any­where you turn online, there’s con­tent mar­ket­ing. Everyone’s try­ing to sell you some­thing. Stone-cold sales pitches are mas­quer­ad­ing as edit­or­i­al con­tent. Back in the day, we used to frown at such practices.

Do you think I’m exag­ger­at­ing? Email’s nearly des­troyed by con­tent mar­ket­ing. The lines between edit­or­i­al con­tent and advert­ising emails are so blurred that keep­ing your inbox free from all the soli­cit­a­tion is almost impossible.

Worst case scen­ario? We won’t be able to com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er via pub­licly avail­able digit­al chan­nels since all trust will have been eroded so com­pletely by aggress­ive mar­ket­ing tac­tics on autopilot.

There will be ways around this for indi­vidu­al users by only allow­ing approved senders — and keep­ing con­tact details secret. But this will spell dis­aster for those of us who make a liv­ing from reach­ing out to audi­ences on behalf of organisations.

Content is the Future of Practical PR

I’ve dis­cussed the issue of mud­dling the bound­ar­ies of mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion with many mar­keters. But they don’t see a prob­lem; what could be bet­ter if advert­ising can be con­veyed as edit­or­i­al con­tent, they insist. And if this prac­tice neg­at­ively impacts edit­or­i­al prac­tices — what do they care?

But mar­keters aren’t the prob­lem here: Marketers should do mar­ket­ing. Marketing should push products and ser­vices. Via sales, mar­ket­ing makes our soci­ety go around; it funds our salar­ies, insti­tu­tions, and pro­gress. The prob­lem is us — the com­mu­nic­at­ors of the world.

Communication depart­ments have con­tinu­ously oper­ated on a frac­tion of the budgets of mar­ket­ing depart­ments. PR agen­cies have always stood in the shad­ow of the mighty advert­ising industry. But this is a rem­nant of a cen­tury with tra­di­tion­al mass media. In our digit­al-first soci­ety, trust is the major chal­lenge. And you build trust with com­mu­nic­a­tion, not marketing.

So, the world’s com­mu­nic­at­ors have an essen­tial role in organ­isa­tions. We must com­mu­nic­ate to estab­lish trust and main­tain good extern­al and intern­al rela­tion­ships. But we can’t turn to mar­ket­ing (or any­one else) for help. We’re the experts; we have the tools needed.

In short: It’s up to us, not others.

Communication is indeed a smal­ler industry than mar­ket­ing. And we indeed live in a soci­ety where every­one wants to sell their products and ser­vices to make a liv­ing. That’s fine. But com­mu­nic­a­tion is essen­tial, too. And being the minor dis­cip­line, we must fight harder to prove our importance.

Content is Not Marketing

With the risk of sound­ing ancient, I remem­ber when edit­or­i­al con­tent was a low-status spe­cial­isa­tion in com­mu­nic­a­tions. We pro­duced magazines for employ­ees, part­ners, and cus­tom­ers. I thought that edit­or­i­al con­tent deserved a high­er status then and surely deserves high­er status in com­mu­nic­a­tions now.

But instead of think­ing about defeat or lack of suc­cess, I don’t mind being the under­dog, the smart minor­ity. We have less to lose and more to win.

I pre­dict that advert­ising will have to find new ways to per­suade. They can’t keep push­ing aggress­ively in every digit­al chan­nel forever. In the mean­time, two-way com­mu­nic­a­tion, build­ing trust, and estab­lish­ing rela­tion­ships will only grow in importance.

The com­mu­nic­a­tion industry is per­fectly equipped to tackle today’s and tomor­row’s digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tion chal­lenges. In the future, there can be con­tent mar­ket­ing and con­tent com­mu­nic­a­tions.

And hon­estly:

If you work in a com­mu­nic­a­tions depart­ment today, you’re likely already respons­ible for the organisation’s web­sites, apps, news­let­ters, and social media chan­nels. Because mar­ket­ing doesn’t want to run chan­nels, they want to run cam­paigns. What we must do, as com­mu­nic­at­ors, is step up and lead the way.

The Red Bull Content Machine

When I think of con­tent, I think of Red Bull. Red Bull is object­ively just one sports drink among many. What sports, in gen­er­al, have to do with car­bo­hydrate drinks, I don’t know. But there’s noth­ing spe­cial about its ingredi­ents, fla­vours, or packaging.

Red Bull could, of course, take the route of tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing. “Here’s our sports drink, Red Bull. It’s awe­some. Buy it, and you can be awe­some, too. Look at these slick visu­als of back­lighted cans sprayed misty for your view­ing pleasure.”

Instead, Red Bull has opted for edit­or­i­al con­tent that’s worth watch­ing. Not only are they pro­du­cing con­tent that the extreme sports com­munity loves, but they’re also even spon­sor­ing their pas­sions, allow­ing them to pur­sue their dreams. I don’t know how they came up with the strategy, but we can all see that it’s dif­fer­ent from tra­di­tion­al advertising.

It takes edit­or­i­al bravery to pro­duce con­tent that people love. It doesn’t take bravery to push products and ser­vices aggress­ively. In this sense, Red Bull is a brave company.

Today, Red Bull is syn­onym­ous with the world of extreme sports. They’re the archi­tects behind thou­sands of spec­tac­u­lar influ­en­cers churn­ing con­tent wear­ing their logo. And oth­er com­pet­ing brands must try to fol­low their lead.

Red Bull still does reg­u­lar ads; they still sell energy drinks. But by focus­ing not just on mar­ket­ing but on edit­or­i­al com­mu­nic­a­tion, too, their brand has reached an icon­ic level in their niche.

Enter: Content Communications

Now, pro­du­cing extreme sports videos was the route that Red Bull took. Regarding con­tent, video is just one of many pos­sible routes to take. Perhaps you’re work­ing for a B2B IT com­pany? Ask your­self: How do you pro­duce con­tent that B2B IT buy­ers would con­sume not just will­ingly — but eagerly?

Read also: “For Content!”

I’m con­fid­ent that your organ­isa­tion can pro­duce bet­ter con­tent than your competitors!

Here’s a mind­set for you to get started:

Be a proud con­tent cre­at­or. If you’re in com­mu­nic­a­tions, you’re not a con­tent mar­keter. You’re a con­tent cre­at­or like influ­en­cers pro­du­cing con­tent for their niche audi­ences. Tackle the chal­lenge with pride.

Play nice with mar­ket­ing. Marketing and sales are essen­tial. But there’s no dicho­tomy: Great mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion can live side by side. They can (and should) co-exist. Content is no exception.

Start with the audi­ence in mind. Audiences don’t like being talked to the way mar­ket­ing talks to people. They want com­mu­nic­a­tion. Your job is to pro­duce con­tent that attracts and con­nects people. Let mar­ket­ing do what they do best: sell stuff.

Will con­tent com­mu­nic­a­tions ever be as big as con­tent mar­ket­ing? Probably not. Will people keep refer­ring to con­tent com­mu­nic­a­tions as con­tent mar­ket­ing? Yes, prob­ably. However, we who have dis­covered this dis­tinc­tion can make it work in our favour.

Because any PR pro­fes­sion­al worth their salt can trans­form an under­dog pos­i­tion into an excit­ing opportunity.

PR Resource: Inbound vs Outbound

Inbound vs Outbound

The inbound mind­set is a fun­da­ment­al shift in pub­lic relations.

Instead of focus­ing on try­ing to spawn non-exist­ing audi­ences, PR can do so much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ¹See also The Publics in Public Relations (Doctor Spin).

If your inbound PR strategy is good enough, you might not even need an out­bound PR strategy.

Read also: The Inbound First PR Strategy: Beauty From Within

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PR Resource: Evergreen Content

Evergreen Content

What’s ever­green con­tent? For a piece of con­tent to be ever­green, it must sus­tain its value over time. Meaning: The con­tent must be rel­ev­ant today, tomor­row, and the fore­see­able future.

While news con­tent might have a more sig­ni­fic­ant impact short-term, ever­green con­tent instead accu­mu­lates over time.

There are dif­fer­ent ways to lever­age ever­green con­tent. I recom­mend a few axioms for ever­green content:

• Two years. To be con­sidered ever­green con­tent, I think the con­tent must be rel­ev­ant and valu­able for at least two years. It’s an arbit­rary time frame, but if an organ­isa­tion can pro­duce con­tent last­ing for two years, it will typ­ic­ally last for much longer.
• Actual interest. To be con­sidered ever­green con­tent, there must be an exist­ing volume of search engine users look­ing for the inform­a­tion. Without search volumes, the con­tent will likely be ‘ever’ without the ‘green’.
• Gentle garden­ing. Evergreen con­tent will only stay ever­green if you tend to it occa­sion­ally. To check if everything’s work­ing, add some­thing help­ful if needed, and per­haps clean out some unne­ces­sary stuff. It’s a bit like garden­ing, I find. 
• Personal touch. It’s dif­fi­cult to pub­lish some­thing unique. However, adding your brand’s ton­al­ity and flair to the con­tent is always pos­sible. The object­ive is to estab­lish trust and author­ity, so a touch of per­son­al­ity matters.

Learn more: The Evergreen Content PR Strategy: Forever Is a Long Time

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PR Resource: Deep Content

Deep Content

Above is an example of an online con­tent struc­ture that’s five levels deep.

In the example above, five lay­ers of ever­green con­tent are stacked:

• Level 1: Articles
• Level 2: Content Upgrade
• Level 3: Resource/Lead Magnet
• Level 4: Ebook
• Level 5: Online Course

Deep con­tent is centred around provid­ing increas­ingly high­er qual­ity to con­tent divers since they’re more valu­able than sur­face browsers.

As for the import­ance of struc­ture and depth, the logic is the same as for ice­berg pub­lish­ing and con­tent themes.

Learn more: The Deep Content PR Strategy

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