According to a research forecast by Technavio, the content marketing industry would have reached a mind-boggling $412 billion by 2021. This was said a couple of years back & now that we are in the year 2022, the content marketing industry cannot agree more. The content industry works on 3 major types of marketing – Advertising, Public Relations & Publicity. Let us understand what the difference between the three aspects of marketing is and deduce what the future of content marketing really is?
Content Advertising is “the price you pay to maintain your brand’s position in the mind of your customer.” It works like any other T.V or Internet based ad, which hammers the brand position in our life, in the most creative visual ways. The catch here is high quality content creation for the goal of brand awareness amongst a large pool of your audience. This type of marketing is more about interrupting the audience and their time to be reminded of a brand’s existence. The paid distribution channels are used to promote the content and it can include PPC campaigns, paid social media & sponsored promotions.
Now, how it is different from content marketing/? Content marketing is more strategic and focused on relevant & consistent content distributed amongst a defined audience to drive profitable actions. Content Marketing utilizes methods like, company and outside blogs, social media & online articles. Content marketing is not talking about the products directly, like a hard selling advertisement would do, content creation here requires agility of words & information. While advertising is instant, content marketing is about being seen as content in words are more believable.
The future of content marketing is definitely steady with the oft quoted “The Fall of Advertising & the rise of Public Relations”. This brings us to the second aspect of marketing with content which is PR. This shift from advertising to PR oriented marketing is significant when it comes to the content industry. PR is the founding stone of a brand’s credibility in the market. There is no advertising that can work better than public relations. While PR uses words in the form of verbal marketing, with compelling perspectives & conversational claims, the third aspect of marketing which is publicity; even though more recallable, it often hard sells as a consequence. Publicity will come handy only when you need to create credibility before advertising your services. As said, “unless a new brand has some credentials in your mind, you are going to ignore their advertising.”
So, when the crux of the matter turns out that PR wins the game in marketing, then we must understand its value in the future. PR has more credibility when customers are skeptical about claims in advertising. PR serves as a backbone to marketing due to human touch through the language of common man. When the personal touch is involved it gives your brand a persona. Now, how does content marketing work in alliance with the concept of Public relations? Just like PR offers a human touch through people, in content marketing your words & style of narration gives your reader a sense of PR. As the consumer gets a chance to interact with the content, they are bound to develop a personal connection with a brand and its language.
No, it’s not silly to wonder, what is this personal connect all about? Here’s an example – Spotify, our favorite music streamer recently announced how they will apply AI technology to understand the various moods of their listeners in a day & will auto play their kind of music based on their mood at a certain point of time in the day. Now this is possible only if the listener is using a voice command function to play a certain song, Spotify will use the artificial intelligence feature & fathom your mood, depending on the role of paralanguage in play. Yes, you are unsettled now, as to how a voice command would fit into the topic of our discussion, that of “The future of content marketing”. Well, don’t be.
Content marketing is your gate to that voice command, or the use of human intelligence so to say. The only difference here is that AI in case of content is replaced by Human Intelligence. Storytelling for example, is the fuel of content marketing, brands that create stories around the personal ideas & experiences end up building a loyal audience. The use of blogs by businesses was a strategic method to incorporate a personal touch in a profit driven enterprise. The online marketing ecosystem is a bait driven system, but whether you lured your potential customers with a “feel good” bait or not, is the future of content marketing. Fostering an emotional bonding with your online audience as an influencer of thought & new ideas should be your ultimate goal.
When you have developed your content around the above mentioned goal, you will reach the future of content marketing – which will be the language of the common man. The personal touch or words which talk in themselves.
