Content Marketing Today

Tom Brokaw: Washington Post Print Dead By 2018 — Okay, Then What?

Strangely, the likely demise of most print newspapers combined with an overreliance on Web advertising suggests to me that content marketing will become even more important–sooner rather than later.  Take a look at what Brokaw had to say along with some parallel comments by PC Magazine’s John Dvorak.  Both of their remarks suggests why content marketing must become a core component of your business strategy.

On November 19, 2007 Tom Brokaw spoke to an audience in Washington, DC where he forecast that the print version of newspapers like the Washington Post would disappear within 10 years.  To illustrate why, he mentioned a conversation he might have with a young person about the wonderful tactile feel of a print publication the response would most likely be:
“Man, what planet were you born on?”

Brokaw added that, “there will never not be a need for professional people to take a complicated information, put it into a form that viewers and readers will need to know and want to understand.” ( Business & Media Institute, November 20,2007)

Here’s the question that concerns me: Who will fund all those digital newspapers?

PC magazine’s in-house curmudgeon, John Dvorak suggests that because Internet users are a bunch of freeloaders, digital advertising will have to pay for content.  He suggests that we might be facing some kind of a bubble because of our “overreliance on advertising revenues to prop up the business model of all the new companies.”

Dvorak adds:

So what about paying for content and services? Is it ever possible to sell content? If even The Wall Street Journal has to pull back from selling content—and if any content has financial value, the Journal’s does—can anyone sell it? Or will everyone just rely on advertising?

I’m in Dvorak’s camp.  We’re already inundated with advertising on television.  So much so that advertisers are attempting new strategies to make advertising look like something other than advertising.  And it’s hard to go online without facing pop ups popovers, pop unders, videos that start playing when you least expect it, and talking heads the talk when you don’t want to listen.  Basically we’ve got all kinds of intrusive advertising messages that remind us of the worst of what we’ve had to deal with on television.
Much research has been done to show that Web users are increasingly ignoring online advertising no matter how clever or creative.  We’re going for the content.  Were looking for solutions to problems.  We know what we want to find and we would prefer not to be interrupted by advertising on our journey to find it.

I believe that the Wall Street Journal will be making a mistake by going to a free model.  I understand that Rupert Murdoch wants to expand the reach of the Journal by making it free.  But they currently have significant online circulation and are making good money from this description revenue.  By moving to a free model along with everyone else, traditional advertising is likely to be less and less effective–and more and more irritating.

Here’s were content marketing comes in.

Because Web users still need information that provides solutions to their problems, they will seek out reliable content providers.  If you are selling a product or service online or in a bricks and mortar environment, you have the opportunity to provide the kind of content that traditional media they no longer be able to afford to provide. 

In fact, we are already seeing the beginnings of that among some of the larger online players such as IBM and Microsoft, as well as smaller companies such as Mind Jet and WebEx.  Even as a small organization, here’s what you can do to fill in gaping content holes:

• Carefully identify your most desirable target buyers
• determine what kind of information is most important to them when it comes to solving their problems or providing solutions.  This applies whether you are selling in a B2B environment or B2C. environment.
• Look at the traditional media information sources upon which your target buyers have relied–and examine the information gaps that may exist.  A good example is the disappearance of local business coverage by newspapers all over the country.  You may be able to provide niche business content in your market that rivals anything your local newspaper is likely to offer.
• Develop a publishing mindset so that you think about not only what to present at how to present it
• Subtly lead those information hungry visitors on a path toward purchase on your website.

In the very near future, traditional marketing choices will be fewer in number. They will also be less effective.  You can achieve measurable results by deploying a content marketing strategy that takes advantage of this imminent change in the media landscape.