These are notes of all the mandatory readings, videos and lectures from the "Topic: Algorithmic persuasion in the digital society" course (2nd/3rd year at the UvA - Communication Science). It comprehends everything relevant to study for the exam. It is well structured, as it addresses the readings,...
CONTENT MARKETING
WEEK 1
CHAPTER 1
THE GAME AND THE MARBLES
➢ Marketing grew from publishing and custom publishing into a fully developed field that is an integral part of our market
and society. In fact, as commercial short copy is increasingly experienced as disruptive or unwanted due to its interruptive
and persuasive power, the importance of the multimedia long line of content marketing grows. This is especially true
where modern technologies are increasingly optimising successful one-on-one communication for us.
➢ Content marketing rapidly grew from the creative and traditional emphasis on creating content into a strong focus on
conversion, whereby the profession increasingly tests itself in terms of realising measurable objectives in the field of
brand strategy, sales and marketing. After years of the game, today, it is also expressly about the marbles. This makes
things more difficult, more measurable, but above all, more exciting every day.
CHAPTER 2
THE PLAYING FIELD . FROM CONTENT PUBLISHING TO CONTENT MARKETING.
Origins of content marketing
➢ Custom publishing = historical predecessor of the field of content marketing
➢ Content marketing became a visible phenomenon between 2005 and 2010 in the triangular domain of marketing,
communication and publishing
➢ Custom publishing is a centuries old practice in which brands try to strengthen their position and marketing objectives
by providing their (potential) relationships with informative, interesting or activating editorial content that supports the
position and proposition of the brand. This editorial approach explicitly distinguishes publishing content from the more
sales-oriented content such as advertising.
➢ At its core, custom publishing selects and defines a community (group with common interests) which isn’t served by other
publishers and for which you expect a broad interest based on market knowledge, research and/or business intuition→2
money flows (from subscription fees and advertisers)
➢ Examples of custom publishing:
o in the early 19th century French bookshop and publishing house Galignani published a printed edition with
content from influential writers which Galignani used to support the attention and appreciation for its own
publishing house
o towards the end of the 19th century in the USA the magazine The Furrow was launched by John Deere in 1895
and explores the full breadth of agricultural interests and tries to find the balance between international and
very local content and best practices, it is very successful and still running to this day
Paid media Owned media
With classic publishers, where the content itself is the For the custom publisher, on the other hand, the
core product, this results in readers (subscribers) who content channel (owned media) is not a tool to
appreciate the content to the extent that they are acquire advertisement or subscription fees, but this
willing to pay for it. Other brands who want to reach content is a tool to engage the consumer in the world
these content consumers basically purchase a in which their brand operates.
position in the publishing domains created by the
publisher through advertisements or native content
(paid media).
→ In both cases (paid and owned), it can be argued that the content user pays — if not with money, then with personal profile
data or at least with the willingness to proceed with a desired action or behavioural change. This means the consumer pays for
their content consumption in data or in dollars.
→ The major difference is that the custom publisher did not, or at least not primarily, realise their commercial goals through
income from subscribers or advertisers.
Definition of content marketing
➢ Joe Pulizzi: “Content marketing is a marketing and business process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and
consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer
action.” It is not the sender that is central here, but the receiver.
1
, ➢ content = message that feeds the communication between brand (sender) and audience (recipient)
➢ marketing = looks for returns, positive forms of conversion (conversion into more sales, more brand awareness, more
proposition recognition, more traffic on own or purchased media channels, or more action perspective); in short
marketing is all about more. It is a bridge discipline that brings together business, customer, market and environment at
a strategic, tactical, operational and infrastructural level.
➢ Ideally marketing should be integrated within the communication department (because if it is in a separate department
information will be shared less effectively)
➢ In order to prevent the loss of
unity and conversion in the broad
spectrum of customer-brand
communication, a content
marketing approach that is both
proactive and reactive is crucial,
24 hours a day and 7 days a
week. So, by definition, silos are
at odds with a consistent,
congruent and successful use of
content marketing.
Scope & definition of content marketing 2
➢ Companies as brand publisher: when companies spend less budget on purchasing exposure on third-party channels and
then focus part of the marketing budgets on building their own content domains (like app, youtube videos, pinterest
etc) in order to reach, captivate and bind their target groups
o Goal: reaching the largest possible group of stakeholders and bind them to owned content hub in the long
term, while strengthening their loyalty to the brand
o Aspects: social influencers who work for a brand (with/out compensation), more intensive customer loyalty bc
the owned content allows to get to know visitors at a deeper level (profiling), enabling us to tailor the
content/communication to these visitors
➢ Companies and brand management: marketing discipline that monitors, analyses, adjusts and organises the brand
identity, brand image and brand position; important activity bc brand value = important pillar under corporate (stock
market) value
o Shortcomings: conventional brand management of ‘command & control’ is struggling with the rapidly changing
reality of content marketing & with incorporating it into organisational thinking and actions
o In a world where everything and everyone is connected 24/7 and the story of a brand is no longer blindly
embraced by the market, the brand needs to communicate consistently, rapidly and with ‘radical
transparency’. This requires a flexible market organisation, integrated content marketing and the courage to
have multiple people within the company communicate that on behalf of the brand. This marks the end of the
familiar command and control, in which communication tightly controlled what was and what was not
communicated about the brand.
o Aspects: necessity for a highly flexible and anti-silo mentality brand approach
The current state of play in the field of content marketing
➢ All the more reason to fully focus on an integrated and company-wide
content marketing strategy and organisation, in which corporate and
internal communication find an optimal balance with the external
disciplines of marketing, sales and customer relations. Unfortunately,
daily practice at many businesses and non-profit organisations still
shows that strategic, organisational and practical integration of the
content marketing is more the exception than the rule.
➢ Therefore, content marketing aims to use relevant content in such a
way that, with the longest possible lead time and the least possible
people and resources, the most communicative efficiency is achieved
in the breadth of brand, strategy and organisation.
➢ As consumers take the lead, the media landscape is fragmenting and
the brand story loses its self-evident acceptance in the market, the
strategic relevance of the owned content ecosystems is growing, in
which the brand positions itself – in all openness and fairness – in a
broader content environment.
➢ In the Anglo-Saxon countries, particularly the United States, we see
more emphasis on the (direct) commercial conversion power of content marketing than in the Western European
market, where the emphasis is primarily on informing and advising, with only a secondary focus on conversion.
2
, Owned content as content optimisation
➢ The contact base this creates forms the ideal foundation for inbound marketing (Chapter 9). The content marketing
power is reflected in the fact that a large part of shoppers allows Allerhande/Savory to affect their meal choices. The
content domain succeeds to keep and direct the attention of the consumer throughout the years, which is not
unimportant in times when the adage is shifting more and more toward ‘Attention is the new currency’.
CHAPTER 3
THE BRAND AND THE ORGANISATION . THE END OF THE SILOS.
Important concise observations/business questions
a) Decline in mass audience communication (increasingly harder to do it like Coca Cola) → to what extent your brand is seen,
understood and appreciated by your target groups
b) Every brand has a unique character and identity (from this identity, the brand functions as a sociological construct in an
increasingly interactive and complex society) → investigate your brand archetype (the circle of Jung is a useful tool) &
identify how your brand interacts with society, inside and outside your organisation
c) Dare to give your brand a leading role in the whole of internal/external communication → write down your brand profile
and corporate story & use it as the touchstones for internal/external communication
d) Place your brand firmly in the market and society, show your responsibility in that and listen to the world around you from
your own brand values → your brand communication proves that not the brand itself is central but that it serves a broader
purpose
The brand as an organisation principle
A strong societal brand should permit itself to move with the surrounding market and society.
Classic brand approach Modern brand approach
command & control approach organisation branding
Brand = facilitating management tool to optimise Brand = provider of the action perspective
revenue, based on the commercial and strategic considering both internal and external stakeholders,
objectives based on the individuality & the nature of the brand
in relation to its increasingly complex environment
One brand story is distributed with convincing power A more social brand communication, in which the
and in the greatest imaginable breadth brand, based on its promise, responds to current
social issues (brands who have built up less
dominance have it easier, since they don’t already
have a mass established monolithic brand)
Business objectives
The business objectives form an explicit part of the content strategy, content organisation and content planning. They describe
and objectify what your brand wants to achieve, with what target groups and in what markets. Preferably, the objectives are as
right and measurable (key performance indicators) periodically (daily, monthly, annually) as possible.
Content marketing organisation
Optimally organising content marketing (and integrated communication in general) requires answers to, among others, the
following questions:
➢ How to develop the right competences?
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