Content Marketing Gets Attention

What does it take to seize customer attention? That's the question that every marketer must now address. The methods of the past are no longer working. What will? Two words: Content Marketing.

That's the view of Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett, authors of the new book Get Content, Get Customers. They note that this trend has assumed many terms. Some call it Custom Media or Custom Content. (We call it Thought Leadership Marketing here.) The point is, you now need to understand "exactly what your customers need to know and deliver it to them in a relevant and compelling way."

You can't rely on the existing media and other third parties to bring your messages to market anymore. You must become the new media, state Pulizzi and Barrett. The world has changed...

The Internet has transformed buyer behavior. Customers have access to vast amounts of online information from a broad range of sources. They can find almost anything they want in order to make an intelligent buying decision. They want plenty of information from you, too, but they want it on their terms. They expect to gather the information they need without being interrupted by unwanted marketing messages.

Now, companies must develop rich and insightful content if they hope to build trust among their prospective clients. They must go beyond creating products and services -- and provide content that matters and makes a difference.  Fortunately, they  can.

Marketing organizations are now realizing that they can create quality content equal to or better than what many media companies are producing. Moreover, they are seeing that they can deliver tangible benefits to prospects and customers by providing relevant content that helps provide solutions to some of the toughest problems their prospective buyers are facing.

According to Publications Management, a newsletter that covers the content marketing field, 25% of corporate marketing budgets are now being devoted to content  marketing.  They are realizing that they must "fill the void of the faltering media."

As the authors put it: "An irreversible shift has begun—away from media company-driven content toward content created specifically for customers."

Comments

[Joe Pulizzi]

Thanks for the mention Britton. This is such an important topic for businesses of all sizes. I really appreciate you taking the time to post about the book.

Best
Joe