Still True: the more things change, the more they stay the same

A recent blog post from Ford Kanzler of Marketing/PR Savvy has been getting its fair share of attention on Twitter and the blogosphere.

Kanzler's post, "Content Marketing Has Been a Successful PR Strategy for Decades," makes the claim that the term Content Marketing is a shiny new term for an age-old marketing and PR technique.

I couldn't agree more.

To me, Kanzler's post is a reminder that although the public relations profession has morphed in recent years -- as have many professions, thankfully -- the PR person's keys to success have fundamentally remained the same for eons.

Case in point:  creating exciting content and distributing it through targeted channels has been part of the PR pros daily regimen for years.  Today, it's called Content Marketing.  The reality is that PR pros have been practicing Content Marketing for years.

We just used to call it PR.

Here's how Junta42, a content marketing firm, defines content marketing:  Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience -- with the objective of driving profitable customer action. 

Sound familiar to any PR pros out there?

When we, as PR people, interview a product manager about a new software release, we turn it into (hopefully) remarkable content in the form of a press release -- just as we have forever. And then we market it to specific audiences.

When we interview a client's customer about how our client's solution saved their customer time and money and improved product quality, we turn it into exciting content in the form of a case history, a blog post, a by-lined article, an instructional podcast or Webinar, Web site or You Tube video, etc., and then we promote it.

When we want to pitch a story to an influential journalist or blogger, we create content in the form of one exciting "teaser" paragraph to peak their interest.

Yes, how we exchange this content and measure it has changed significantly, especially in recent years thanks in large part to technology advances.  And we reach our clients' audiences in new formats and on new devices, and this will always be changing.

Joe Chernov, Eloqua's director of content, said in a recent tweet:  "'content marketing'" is different now, w/rise in SEO, collapse of print, networked customers who need info to share."

His points are very valid.  Content marketing is different now. 

But so is Kanzler's point, who says, "Just don't think that calling it content marketing makes it something entirely new."

What do you think?  Is Content Marketing an updated handle for a battle-tested discipline?

Content Rules: Stop the Presses! Wait a Minute! Start the Presses!

Back at the turn of the last century, there lived a great baseball player from Brooklyn named Wee Willie Keeler.  Wee Willie played for four teams and holds the 14th best career batting average in history.  He also is a long-time member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.  For all his accomplishments on the field, W.W. is perhaps best remembered for a quote. When asked about how to become a great hitter, his answer was "Keep your eye clear, and hit 'em where they ain't."  


Hit 'em where they ain't.  


That seems a pretty good guide to a lot of things in life, including marketing content.  Knowing about the Wee Willie Way is why we were only marginally stunned last week when we read Joe Polizzi's blog at the excellent content marketing site, Junta42, telling us that print is back!


You heard me right. P-R-I-N-T. That five-letter word that sounds as old fashioned as, well, Wee Willie Keeler, might be staging a comeback.  Wasn't print too expensive?  Weren't newspapers too messy?  Books were too cumbersome and better left to Kindles and magical tablets like the iPad, and brochures...well, the stupid things just won't let you click through.  And where are the analytics and heat maps? The ROI and the keywords?  God, what will become of us if our only option is to, ugh, just read something?


I mean just as we are starting to figure out how to keep our snorkels dry in the Tsunami of the all-digital sea, this guy Polizzi says we might have to come out of the water and re-think our content plans.  He says there are seven reasons for this.  But, you know, the more I think about it, the more I start to wonder if he just might be right.  Polizzi says:

• We are reading more of our mail, because there is less of it. Combine that with the fact that fewer traditional publishers turning out magazines, and there is more room for content marketers to develop magazines that cut through the clutter and get noticed. 

• Marketing's primary focus is on customer retention and that is what print materials such as newsletters were developed to accomplish. 

• While print production and distribution costs are higher than digital, audience development cost is virtually non-existent to marketers who can simply use their existing database. 

• Print seems to stimulate our thinking and analysis far more than digital.   

• There is a perception among many that a print story still is a more credible source in news and features than anything on the web. People are burned out and cutting back their online time.  Print helps them stay informed or entertained when they choose to "get off the grid." 

There is one more point Joe made, which is that print has been so overlooked and abandoned by content marketers that it just might be the cool new part of the marketing mix. Ultimately, Polizzi's reasoning is simply that opportunity exists where nobody else is looking. So that is how we get back to Wee Willie Keeler and hitting em where they ain't.  I think W.W. just might concur with Mr. Polizzi. 

LeBron James is Among the Savviest of Content Marketers

Like millions of other Americans and basketball fans around the globe, I'm eager for closure.

NY Knicks? Stay with the Cavs? Join the Bulls in the Windy City? Or perhaps it will be the Heat in Miami?

Oh where, oh where will LeBron James, aka King James, play for the 2010/11 basketball season and the foreseeable future.

Well, unless you have been truly off the grid and vacationing in say, the Peruvian Amazon, then you're aware of James' prime time announcement tonight on ESPN at which point (9 p.m. ET) he will reveal which NBA team he will play for.

While we wait, James can lay claim to being the subject of the most hyped free agency in NBA history.

It's an award that will look handsome enough alongside his many other awards, which include Rookie of the Year, two Most Valuable Player awards and his membership to multiple All-NBA and All-Star teams.

Despite his "King James" status, this king has yet to earn the crown that most NBA players covet above any other -- an NBA Championship.

And it really doesn't matter other than to the purest of NBA fans if he ever wins a championship.  He's King James, crown or no crown, because everyone says so -- fans, TV and radio broadcasters, his team mates, competitors, sports writers, his mom.

Everyone.

So how does he do it?  How does he get us to watch tonight?

Well, perhaps above anything else, LeBron James is a brilliant content marketer.  In the same class as Tiger Woods (at least before Tiger's crash) but perhaps savvier since James has won the world's attention and pocketbooks without winning the big one while Woods has a truckload of of trophies from winning golf's Majors.

In a post today, Joe Pulizzi, a founder of content matching site Junta42, reminds us that we are all media companies -- publishers of content. And whether you like LeBron James or not (I happen to like him though the ego can be a bit tough to take), B2B and B2C companies can learn from how James has built his tremendous brand.

Create great content and tell a story (tonight, LeBron tells his story live to his fans)

Put a line in the sand and say something interesting and thought provoking (as Joe points out, James has never been a media darling).

Use a range of communications channels to converse with your customers.  Find out where your customers are.  And go there (James talks to his fans via Facebook, Twitter, his web site, and on TV a few hours from now).

Closure is just around the corner.