Summary of the Topic 'Content Marketing' (University of Amsterdam) May 2019. It consists of a summary of the required book chapters of the book 'Scaling up Content Marketing' (april 2019) by Ed Peelen. The book chapters and required articles are supplemented with notes of the lectures (including gu...
Summary Topic Content Marketing 2019: lectures and literature
Week 1: Rise, role and meaning of content marketing
• Chapter 1 (not relevant, only introduction – so not included here)
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Article Järvinen and Tainminen (2015)
Week 2: Storytelling
• Chapter 5
• Article Green, Brock and Kruglanski (2000)
• Article Van Laer, De Ruyter, Visconto and Wetzels (2014)
• Article Gordon, Ciorciari and Van Laer (2018)
Week 7: How to professionalise content marketing
• Chapter 2 (> week 1)
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,Week 1: Rise, role and meaning of content marketing
Chapter 2: The playing field. From content publishing to content marketing.
Content and marketing
▪ Content refers to the whole of (textual or visual) content. Content is often positioned within
the discipline of communication: message, sender (brand), and recipient (audience).
▪ Marketing looks for conversion; into more sales, more brand awareness etc. Marketing is all
about more.
In practice, content marketing often leads to a silo mentality, in which strategy, brand management,
marketing, sales, and customer care lack of synergy. This silo formation makes efficient and effective
content marketing virtually impossible.
A silo mentality does no justice to the potential strength and value of content marketing. A content
marketing approach that is both proactive and reactive is therefore crucial.
→ 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.
➔ “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.”
Custom publishing: cradle of content marketing
The origin of content marketing lies in custom publishing: a centuries-old tradition in which brands
try to strengthen their positioning and marketing objectives by providing their relationships with
informative, interesting, or activating editorial content that supports the position and preposition of the
brand.
Custom publishing does what every classic publisher does: select and define a coherent community (a
group with common interests), which is not served by other publishers, but for which a broad interest
is expected. If these assumptions are correct and there is sufficient audience to appreciate the content,
two money flows can be expected: one from subscription fees and one from advertisers.
Paid media: other brands who want to reach these content consumers purchase a position in the
publishing domains through advertisements or native content.
Owned media: the content channel of the custom publisher itself.
2
,Brand as a publisher
Brand as a publisher: the trend in which companies spend less budget on purchasing exposure on
third-party channels and then focusing part of the marketing budgets on building their own content
domains.
Brand publishing is a mix of paid and owned media and builds the visibility and interaction in social
and rented media → effect on engagement, attitude, and activation.
Also, a more intensive customer brand loyalty is built, because the owned content offers opportunities
to get to know visitors at a deeper level.
Brand management: the marketing discipline that monitors, analyses,
adjusts, and organises the brand identity, brand image, and brand
position.
Brand management goes through the following steps: figure 1.
In the current digital world, the brand needs to communicate
consistently, rapidly and transparently. This marks the end of the Figure 1: Scope of brand management source
‘command and control’ in which communication tightly controlled
what was and what was not communicated about the brand.
→ However, the basis principles of the brand archetype, the brand values, and the brand story continue
to be the strategic compass in modern brand management.
Definition of content marketing
Through a historic trip through publishing, custom publishing, and brand publishing, content
marketing can be defined as:
“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.”
o Receiver focused: brand closes the distance to the consumer by informing, advising, engaging,
or entertaining them → increases trust the consumer has.
o Own media
o Goal oriented
3
, Chapter 3: The brand and the organisation. The end of the silos.
Brand objectives
The following observations and business questions are important in creating a brand strategy and
brand management:
• The degree to which a mass brand can convey their message to a mass audience appears to be
suitable for less and less brands.
• Every brand has as a unique character and identity.
• A brand needs to give himself a leading role in the whole of internal and external
communication.
• A brand needs to place himself in the market and society, show his responsibility in that and
listen to the world around him from his own brand values.
The brand as an organising principle
Today, we see an explicit shift to the idea in which the brand actually provides the action perspective,
from which the organisation relates to the internal and external stakeholders.
→ Organisation branding: the approach, in which not the product or services are central, but the
individuality and nature of the brand in relation to its increasingly complex environment.
So, there is a transition from a typical command and control approach (brand story is distributed with
convincing power) to a more social brand communication (brand responds to current social issues,
such as the environment and health).
→ a societal brand which permits itself to move with the surrounding market and society.
Business objectives
Content marketing needs a set of rational, objectively qualifiable goals: business objectives (whole of
goals and sub-goals. They describe what your brand wants to achieve, with what target groups, and in
what markets. They can be commercial (revenue, market share), financial (lower production costs) or
be formulated in the customer perspective (increase customer base).
Content marketing is not the exclusive domain of a communications or marketing department. It
brings two worlds together: public relations corporate communication and marketing communication.
There are many more aligned disciplines, such as journalism, branded content, and corporate
publishing. In recent years, larger organisations are having positive experiences with agile teams:
multidisciplinary teams which work on certain subjects.
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