REALITY CHECK: CONTENT MARKETING IS NOT SAME AS CONTENT WRITING
“Every brand needs to tell a story”
YES, THE ONE THAT NO ONE TELLS….
“Every brand needs to tell a story that THE AUDIENCE WOULD LISTEN”
The first is content writing. The second is content marketing.
MAKE NO MISTAKE. YOUR CONTENT IS THE CORE ASSET THAT DRIVES THE ENTIRE BUSINESS FUTURE.
Let’s put forward an incident for better clarity.
How can a boring product be marketed?
A brand manufacturing PET bottles for example — similar shape products , colorless, with–manufacturing USPs that consumers of the brand don’t care for or understand.
Simple! Highlight the ‘ethical negatives’ about an ‘interesting’, competitor product instead — the Plastic Bottle.
This is what the organization did…
A nationwide campaign was launched against plastic and its catastrophic impact on people and the planet. Post a year, the campaign had received millions of followers including celebrities, the plastic industry launched a counter-campaign, and awareness on non-plastic products (read — glass) increased multi-folds!
This is the power of content; albeit content marketing
Curious? Let’s dive into this crazy world — Four stories to elaborate the four fundamentals of content marketing
WHOM TO SPEAK: THE AUDIENCE EFFECT
Communication should not be just what you want to speak. Marketing isn’t a game of flaunting ‘brand resumes’. Instead, firms should be able to read and relate to the audience and speak their minds.
This is the story of a legendary woman lifestyle brand to sell their ‘lipsticks’.
One way was the usual ‘feature-based and aspirational’ selling — A shiny product to look attractive, have glossy lips, etc.
So does everyone in the market.
A bright copywriter then came up with a bright idea.
Instead of the product, the campaign sold an action.
“MARK YOUR MAN”
Just for the sake of it, every woman has their own ‘lip mark’ quite like a fingerprint of sorts. While making love, a peck on the lover’s cheek……
Somewhere, it connected every woman to a mighty lioness, marking her ‘love territory’. Now which woman doesn’t want that?!!
See for yourself
WHERE TO SPEAK: THE PLATFORM EFFECT
The correct audience segment is as important as discovering the right platform where they exist. Hence, communicating on a wrong channel is analogous to speaking before a wall and expecting to be heard The right platform is essential for the content to be visible to the right audience.
Presenting, hence, the platform effect of content marketing.
It’s a no brainer that dynamic content (Read videos) are more popular than normal static images. That’s the reason why everyone tries to jump on to Youtube these days.
But, how do you leverage the platform well to become viral?
Well, counter-intuitively, you just could break the trend.
This is a story of an airline brand that decided to step away from the normal travel videos that depicted jaw-droppingly colorful skies, breath-taking greenery, heavenly blue waters, etc. Moving away from aspiration, this was a dose of reality.
The video consisted of what souvenirs or gifts people brought back home after a long journey. No, they weren’t artifacts, but bandaged legs, positive pregnancy, marriage, or even hilariously, a surgically transformed body part!
The campaign ends asking people to be associated with ‘authenticity’. No sparkles, no over-dreamy lines, but something that the audience could connect with.
Needless to mention, the right thing was spoken at the right platform.
WHEN TO SPEAK: THE TIME EFFECT
The right things have to happen at the right time to create the right impact . Believe it or not, every platform you post on has definite times and dates when the posts could receive the most engagement. But, that’s a talk for another day.
We are more concerned with the TIME Effect. Yes, Timing matters more than we comprehend.
Moment marketing (also read social observances) is a thing and the best brands in the world always capitalize on the current trends and happenings to churn out communications that can touch the audience mindset.
And yes, you could turn viral without flashy designs and Vinci-level artworks! Well, content matters.
Take this story for example.
This is how most brands churned out content on Father’s Day.
Random designs showing dads as superheroes, paying tributes, slashing out big words, and whatnot.
Fantastic , But not like DUREX. (Yes, the firm is a branding genius)
Another example during the Delhi violence incident a few months back.
Most brands refrained from doing anything because of ‘controversy fear’. However, DUREX again showed why content, framed in the right way, and delivered at the right time could garner correct attention.
WHAT’S NEXT: THE IMPACT STUDY
The above ‘3 W’ Framework is a great strategy to initiate content production that bridges your offerings with the audience’s needs, is personalized according to platforms, and is posted at the right time.
However, a monthly storyboard with engaging content on the right platforms and communicated at the right time is, ACTUALLY, THE START!
What follows is a more rigorous technical aspect wherein feedbacks gets compiled , analysis is done from social media insights, website analytics followed to comprehend the audience behavior, campaign performances, website performances, and suggestion of recommendations to make the 3W framework implementation better in the next month!
Constant generation and feedback to enhance the former is the core of true content marketing.
Interested to know more?
Well, as the headline suggests, that’s an episode for the next upcoming weeks. Stay tuned!
