Page 4 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Content Marketing:

Real opportunity or

just an artificial

trend?

Content marketing has become the number one Good content is essential everywhere and using it
buzzword in the communications industry within the in a smart way is key, too
past two years. Unlike traditional advertising and PR, it
is determined to address the target group with informa- Certainly one of the most spectacular examples of suc-
tional, consultative and entertaining content. But will this cessful content marketing is Red Bull, the manufacturer
new communication technology be able to prevail over of the homonymous energy drink. The Austrian compa-
the well-tried advertising strategies in the long run? ny has long been more than just a beverage producer:
With the in-house television channel "Servus TV" and
There are quite a number of definitions swirling around the magazine "The Red Bulletin" (monthly circulation:
for content marketing, as it is actually an umbrella term, 2.7 million), the enterprise has set up its own media
covering different business goals and marketing practic- company. The contents produced there are virtually
es and it has to deal with the constant changes in to- indistinguishable from traditional publishers’ maga-
day’s marketing and customer reality. The most com- zines. However, Red Bull boss, Dietrich Mateschitz,
monly used definition is the one by the Content Market- succeeded in October 2012 with an amazing marketing
ing Institute describing it as “the technique of creating stunt, when the company supported the Austrian Felix
and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, Baumgartner who soared into the air to about 40 kilo-
acquire and engage a clearly defined target audience in meters with a balloon and then jumped back down to
order to drive profitable customer action”. Thus, content earth with a parachute. Media companies around the
marketing is any marketing effort that involves the crea- world reported extensively on the spectacle and the
tion and sharing of media and publishing content in or- story was running like a thread through all Red Bull
der to acquire customers and is most successful when it marketing activities.
provides consistent, high-quality content that solves
people's problems.
Increasing investment in content for better quality
Traditional advertising alone is outdated Looking at Red Bull, investing in content marketing
seems to be paying off and for many companies, pub-
In fact, content marketing is basically a customer- lishing high quality content has become in fact a must
centric, integrated approach and part of a broader mar- for customer communication, acquisition and above all
keting view, as customer experience and needs, prefer- customer loyalty. It proves to be true that good content
ences and questions of people and so-called target au- attracts, informs, persuades, serves and engages pro-
diences are at the center. That’s why traditional adver- spects and customers across the entire lifecycle and
tising is no longer enough to attract customers and to relationship with your organization and brand, as it re-
distinguish yourself from the competition. Many con- sponds to the questions and needs of your target audi-
sumers are simply annoyed by constant advertising, ence. Therefore, it is essential to move away from a
forcing companies to look for alternative ways to put campaign-only mentality to a consistent approach.
their products in perspective.
Considering ROI for content marketing, we can look at
The content approach can offer new marketing opportu- the visibility and ranking in search results as well. Here,
nities: In-depth information rather than superficial adver- content marketing has become particularly important,
tising, exciting stories rather than monosyllabic phrases, as unique content is rewarded by search engines when
dialogue rather than monologue. To consider all this is ranking the website. This is a decisive factor to keep in
essential, since today’s consumers are more and more mind, as pages that are chipped or not listed in the
active in looking for information rather than passively search engines are in fact invisible for those searching,
receiving advertising messages. such as for example potential customers. An outstand-
ing content or text, on the other hand, invites the page
visitors to stay and read more, consequently, listing the
page in the long term even higher or on top of the
search engine's result pages.
4 Asian eMarketing August 2014 - Content Marketing