I often find myself having to convince people of the need for and value of content in web marketing. Valuable content is necessary to attract and retain readers. I recently participated in a web marketing planning session where we addressed concern over lack of repeat website visitors, especially within the organization. The problem seemed apparent to me: outdated content. However, making the case for web content is challenging.
What follows is a case example of traditional marketing vs. web (content) marketing. The dialogue is edited for length, particularly because I was repeating myself to make my point (I’m a more concise writer than speaker).
"We need a new plan for marketing our website. People aren’t looking at it, even though we promote it constantly."
I raise my hand. "The website needs new content."
"Excuse me?"
"People need a reason to visit your website. They need to anticipate new content if they are to return. If the "news and events" section hasn’t been updated in four months—if the pages contain static content–people have no incentive to return."
"We can do that, but how do we get people to look at it? We need a marketing plan."
"That is marketing. Content marketing. If you consistently create new content—if people can rely on that—they will return."
I received a grin as if I didn’t understand the problem. "People need to know it’s there though."
"Yes, but you need to have content before you can promote it. You can’t tell people to use a website without giving them something useful."
"I think this is a case of the chicken or the egg."
Respectfully, no. This is not a question of the chicken or the egg. You can’t convince people to visit your website "for the latest" when there is nothing new to see. People have no reason to trust you if your track record doesn’t support your claim.
Developing and maintaining web content is hard. But you can’t ignore it, save it for later, or separate it from your marketing plan. Marketing cannot make up for valuable content. (Admittedly, I sounded just as preachy during the meeting.)
Step one
Develop current, relevant, useful content.
Yes, this means you need a content strategy. Yes, this means you can’t jump straight to marketing. But as part of developing your content strategy you gain an understanding of what content is needed to attract and retain your visitors.
Joe Pulizzi, Founder and Chief Content Officer of Junta42, explains in his whitepaper How to Attract and Retain Customers With Content:
Once you have delivered relevant content, you become a trusted resource. Content marketing enables companies to build a level of trust among their customers that makes it easy for those customers to buy.
"Buy" here refers to what you want your visitors to do, whether it be purchase a product, learn a skill, download a PDF, be informed of current news and events, or subscribe to your RSS feed to keep up on your great content.
Step two
I’m not addressing step two until I’m convinced you understand that content is step one, or when I write another post, whichever comes first.
But how does the story end?
I’m pleased to say that the web marketing meeting ended favorably. We discussed a plan to better involve the key web content stakeholders in the maintenance of the website and have them accept more ownership of the content that pertains to them. This does not constitute a content strategy—much more needs to be addressed—but good topics were discussed, including performing a content audit and developing a maintenance plan. The seed was planted and hopefully more is to come.
More on content strategy
Content strategy is a fast-growing topic in web publishing. It’s exciting and encouraging to see an increased awareness of the need for good web content. Here are some "current, relevant, and useful" resources for learning more:
- The Case for Content Strategy-Motown Style – A great recent article on A List Apart by Margot Bloomstein.
- Content Strategy for the Web – A book published this month by Kristina Halvorson. I received my copy in the mail last week and I am very excited about it. It is a valuable guide to understanding the need for content strategy and how it fits into the web publishing process.
- 20 content strategy links from around the web – A collection of links to recent web content strategy articles from the past month posted by Julie Espinosa.
More on content marketing
- What is Content Marketing? If You’re Not Content Marketing, You’re Not Marketing – A good introduction to content marketing by Junta42.
- Content Marketing 101: An Introduction to Content Marketing – A useful list of content marketing lessons by Copyblogger.
What about you?
Chime in! What challenges do you face marketing your website? How does content fit into your strategic plan?
Jeordan Legon
September 1st, 2009
Good points here. What makes content even more valuable, in this age of sharing and social networking, is that you can get people talking without even having them come to your site.
The best content updates the client’s site to keep people coming back, but it also contains elements that can be easily shared on Facebook, Google desktop and other social apps to get new people interested.
Both offer a winning combination to clients. But it all starts with the creation of relevant, engaging content.
Thanks for the great post.
Jeordan
Shelly Bowen
September 1st, 2009
I think we may live in parallel universes, Rick. I have that conversation all the time. In my experience, business owners and CEOs get the difference between marketing and content marketing (and understand the value of content strategy and valuable Web content) more often than marketers do.
Congrats on your MFA!
~Shelly
Rick Allen
September 1st, 2009
Shelly, thank you for the congrats and the sympathy! I’ve had that experience with business owners as well. They often appear more open-minded to the web publishing process (of which I include marketing). Although, my aim is not to generalize the marketing profession, just demonstrate the shift in thinking. Having earned my degrees in writing and publishing, I appreciate the importance of content, but I understand others don’t share that perspective.
Rick
Joe Pulizzi
September 1st, 2009
Rick…excellent overview of a meeting that happens all too often in organizations. Thanks for the shout out. Executives that have been trained in traditional marketing have a hard time grasping the concepts you are talking about. Good thing there are people like you making them aware of it.
Keeping the Faith.
Joe (@juntajoe)
Rick Allen
September 1st, 2009
Joe, you’re welcome! Although, I should be thanking you for the links. I feel like content marketing is so important to content strategy and web publishing. It needs to be better understood and you provide some really great resources for learning. Keeping the faith, indeed!
Rick
Margot Bloomstein
September 1st, 2009
This is great, Rick. The point you make about the need for good, current, relevant content across the entire web experience especially applies to decision-support content. Why should your target audience buy now, click here, or download the PDF if there’s nothing compelling to support that decision? That’s where convincing testimonials, invigorating podcasts, and accessible images come into play. Clients all too often deprioritize that “accessory” content. You mentioned moving into a content audit; that’s a good step to make sure no small pieces fall through the cracks and that your client has a plan to attend to those small but meaningful details.
Thanks for resetting us back to this all-important “step one.”
Margot (@mbloomstein)
Rick Allen
September 1st, 2009
Margot, you sound like someone who has made the case for content strategy before (maybe even Motown style). (For those that don’t catch this reference, look under “More on content strategy” on this page for an excellent article.)
I really like your comment on decision-support content (i.e., content to drive user decisions). That really gets to the heart of content strategy. “Current, relevant, and useful content” needs to influence your target audience to meet business objectives.
Rick
seamus walsh
September 1st, 2009
Fire the marketing guy. He should understand user wants and needs, who hired this guy? Is he related to the CEO? We have to stop dancing around the bush with the hosers and posers. If marketing does not know wants, needs and buying intentions THROW THEM OUT of the meeting, get the CFO in there and have them removed from the premise. Please?
Bill Albing
September 1st, 2009
If you’re not publishing new content regularly on your site, then you are not really engaged with your customer base; you’re not really using your web site to communicate and engage with your customers and potential customers. If your content does not lead to an action, then why is it there? Is your web site yet another silo separate from the rest of the company. The phrase content strategy might be intimidating — for me the process of keeping web content up-to-date and relevant is a simple principle. It’s a great Step One. I just hope the first step is not a doozy.
Amanda VanLente-Hatter
September 2nd, 2009
Rick,
This post is right on, but also made me laugh, because the strategy is truly only step one. My current position was created solely to have someone to create that content, but I find I’m still having the discussion you describe above. Some feel their content is fine (even if it’s 5 years old), others think they must have something that MOVES on the page to attract attention. I’d venture a guess that your next steps have something to do with finding people who can write for the Web (or teaching them) versus those who are used to academic or print writing…
Rick Allen
September 2nd, 2009
Amanda, thanks for laughing. I take the topic seriously, but admittedly, I was also hoping for a laugh.
I really sympathize with your current work situation. I find that people often consider the act of hiring a web writer the first AND last step in content development. They recognize the need for content—”Yes, yes, of course,” they say—but still don’t understand the importance. That is what I tried to convey in this post. There’s a big difference between saying content is needed and actually making content a priority.
Rick
Keith Wiegold
September 2nd, 2009
Rick: caught the tweets on this one and have to say it truly resonated with me — I have SO been there!
I have to admit, when I saw the subhead “But how does the story end?”, I assumed it would be followed by this:
“The story DOESN’T end. Content Marketing is an on-going strategy, one where Brand is in a continuous, meaningful dialogue with Consumer. Content Marketing is not a ‘campaign,’ it’s more of a forever discipline that can’t ‘end happily ever after’ unless it keeps on going.”
But the story here, happily, is a specific one for you with a promising ‘to be continued….’
Thanks for the terrific article!
ContentKeith
Rick Allen
September 2nd, 2009
Keith, thanks for the comment. I’m really glad the post resonated with you! I’m thankful you understand that I wasn’t writing the “end of the story” in this post. I hope I conveyed that content strategy is a discipline and not a bullet point. As Kristina Halvorson says in her book, “Content Strategy for the Web”:
“When can you stop worrying about your content? When content is removed—archived or literally deleted—from your website. The end.”
Thank you Kristina!
Rick
Dedrick Sprick
September 4th, 2009
I think the point of this article is just shy of making a stronger point with those who need to hear it.
Two recent books I have read discuss that content must be integrated into the real-time, real-world processes in which we live. They both speak to how content must be a catalyst for other needs. In this sense, content strategy will never succeed outside of an understanding of business strategy, and, conversely, businesses understand the importance of content strategy when they see content strategy as a tool for business, not content for content sake.
The idea of “content marketing” should be “marketing content”. Even before you create content (or at least simultaneously), you need to know your audience. This brings the marketing aspect in, since marketing usually integrates customer (or audience) information that helps create the business framework within which content exists.
It’s not just creating content, it’s putting a message in a market. Are the messages relevant?
Thank heaven, 11 fresh content strategy links « new media mentality
September 11th, 2009
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