Five Timeless Principles to Content Marketing Mastery
“Content is King, but Context is the Kingdom” - Gary Vaynerchuk Content marketing has always been a mixed bag of art and science. We see the evidence of artistry across the breadth of our digital and analog landscape in masterful storytelling, catchy jingles and unbelievable visual creatives. One can almost hear the collective thumb scroll of memes, videos and other digital objects d'art on social media channels. Overconsumption issues aside, we glean daily inspiration for new products, services, hobbies, professional pursuits, and travel destinations from the content we consume. We also absorb a healthy amount of brand awareness along our journey through a seemingly mystical form of psychological osmosis. So where is the science in all of this? Well, behind the scenes companies are amassing armies of data-driven marketers with limited paid-media budgets and aggressive goals to monetize their content. Everything is being measured, monitored and analyzed to optimize media spend across strategic communication channels. Whether you are trying to milk the hundreds of influencer blog posts your brand ambassadors wrote, or get the most out of your expert product review videos, it’s critical that you get your content science right so that you get everything you can out of it. The first thing we have to let go of is the notion that customers move in a strictly linear fashion along the customer engagement cycle. It’s just not realistic. We aren’t robots and we don’t simply move from brand awareness, to consideration to purchase, to loyalty like in the days of yore. We buy things while walking down the street without barely a second’s thought. Retailers lure us into showrooms with sophisticated geotargeting techniques as we drive by without any premeditation in mind. We have simply become more opportunistic and impulsive. Our purchases aren’t always as thoughtful as they...