Foster’s sees the funny side of content marketing with Fast Show videos

Foster’s showed how comedy can be a powerful platform for content marketing when the Australian lager brand teamed up with The Fast Show creators Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse to launch six new online-only episodes of the classic TV sketch show last November.

It was the first time the original cast had come together again for more than 10 years.

The specially-written sketches – exclusive to the Foster’s website – featured some of The Fast Show’s best loved characters from the 1990s, including Swiss Toni, Ted and Ralph, the ‘Suit You’ tailors, Brilliant Kid, and Colin Hunt.

Now, a further six weekly episodes are being shown exclusively on the Foster’s Funny website.

Foster’s Funny was launched as an innovative new platform for the brand’s comedy-centric approach to content marketing in the UK.

Foster’s is encouraging viewers to share the Fast Show clips by rewarding them with extra unseen material if they share the branded content within an hour of each episode going live.

Take a look at this week’s episode …

 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Digital content marketing up by 22%, says Mintel report

Julia Hutchison, COO, APA

by Brian Oliver

The use of digital content marketing formats – such as branded websites, digital magazines, e-mail, mobile applications and video – has increased by 22 per cent since 2007, according to the latest market intelligence from Mintel.

Commissioned by the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA), the December 2011 report confirms that digital reach is now extensive in the UK – with a user total of 41.2 million, averaging 1.1 million visits per digital title per month.

Digital now accounts for 37 per cent of all content marketing activity, says the report, and is likely to overtake print formats (such as customer magazines and newsletters) by 2013. This growth is expected to be driven by the expansion of smartphone formats and apps.

Print currently accounts for 52 per cent of all content developed – a figure that has fallen significantly since the last APA/Mintel study in 2007. At that time, print accounted for 71 per cent of total content marketing activity (compared with 90 per cent in 2005).

MORE B2B USERS

The report also notes that B2B use of digital content has risen by 13 per cent (from four per cent to 17 per cent) over the past four years.

The most common e-zine frequency is three to five times per year, says the report, while a third of website-based content is now updated daily – indicating marketers’ commitment to keeping content fresh and up-to-date. This also reflects findings from APA-commissioned YouGov research in 2010 which showed that consumers wanted new content daily from their favourite brands.

The report says the rapid growth of content marketing is attributed to a number of factors, including the flexibility and cost effectiveness of the channel and growing demand from consumers for branded content as an added-value exchange for their custom.

GROWING AWARENESS OF BENEFITS

Julia Hutchison (pictured), APA’s COO, says: “Having worked through five years of recession coupled with fast evolving communications, the report shows that the [content marketing] industry is now better equipped to create more effective content solutions for clients.

“Client-side marketers are becoming even more aware of the benefits of a content marketing strategy.”

She adds: “The ever increasing levels of convergence have played strongly to content marketing’s strengths and we are seeing more clients choose to supplement their offerings with multi-channel content.” 

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications. 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

 

Rapid growth of content marketing means we’re ALL publishers now

Why every company is now a media owner and a self-publisher …

by Brian Oliver

“The medium is the message” wrote Marshal McLuhan, the Canadian communication theorist, in his famous 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.

McLuhan believed that the form of a medium embeds itself in the content it carries, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium actually influences how the message is received.

Historically, the medium (and therefore the message) was always controlled by somebody else: usually the powerful media owners who ran national newspapers, influential magazines, TV channels and radio stations.

As a result, companies had to rely on buying advertising space (‘paid media’) or gaining editorial coverage (‘earned media’) in order to spread the word about their products or services and engage with their target audience.

In the case of ‘earned media’, this meant continually having to compete for a limited amount of editorial space via print or broadcast media – without having any control over how (or if) a brand story was used.

But all that is changing.

CONTROL HAS SHIFTED

The Web (which McLuhan predicted almost 30 years before it was invented) has completely revolutionised the way in which companies can communicate with their clients, customers, investors, and other stakeholders.

The medium may still be the message, but control of the medium has shifted dramatically. Thanks to the Internet, it is now firmly in the hands of companies and brands themselves. And that includes yours.

With the help of content marketing specialists and skilled brand journalists, any size of company can now be a media owner. Any brand can now be a self-publisher, with absolute control over its own medium … and therefore its own messages.

BRANDS ARE THE NEW MEDIA OWNERS

If your company hosts the occasional case study, blog post, press release, or white paper on a domain you control and own, you’re already employing some of the basic publishing, programming, and delivery concepts that media publishers have been using for years.

Content marketing simply takes this form of self-publishing to a more strategic level, with the content itself carefully planned and sustained. 

Brand-owned media can now range from customer-focused blogs, themed magazine-style microsites and social media content … to targeted eNewsletters, interactive digital magazines, videos, podcasts, webinars, white papers, eBooks and eGuides.

As well as hosting videos and podcasts on your own website, you can now even set up your own branded TV channel and radio station using platforms such as YouTube and SoundCloud.

Brand-owned media and self-published content can now be marketed holistically across other networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. 

There are now more tools for sharing content than ever before. And quality content that is engaging, relevant, informative and entertaining will continue to be shared for years to come.

DIRECT LINK BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR CUSTOMER

Building a platform of compelling and original content can have a positive effect on your business. It can help build brand loyalty, establish real thought leadership, boost sales, and gain valuable permission to market to potential new customers (because they have chosen to ‘opt in’ to your content).

Most importantly, though, being a self-publisher provides a unique opportunity to develop a direct link between you and your customer. No more middlemen. No more relying on media companies for coverage.

But to succeed as a self-publisher you can’t just produce content at random.

You have to take time to understand your target readership (i.e. your customers) and identify the themes that matter to them. You need a ‘readership’ acquisition strategy based on defined company goals, and a long-term vision of the kind of stories you want to tell in order to influence your audience.

In other words, when developing a content strategy you have to start thinking like a publisher too … 

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications. 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Are you ready for the Content Marketing explosion?

by Brian Oliver

As businesses of all sizes continue to find it hard to generate sales leads in the current economic climate, more companies are recognising that integrated content marketing can play a vital role in building relationships with potential customers and moving them through the buying process.

Key content marketing tools include: customer-focused blogs, magazine-style brand microsites, social media content, eNewsletters, digital magazines, videos, infographics, eBooks, and ‘how-to’ eGuides.

A recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute found that some 60 per cent of B2B companies intend to increase their investment in content-led marketing in 2012.

Of course, content marketing has been around for a while. It’s a ‘pull’ mechanism designed to hook potential customers and reel them in. It’s all about engaging with them, and getting them to trust you, by creating and sharing content that is helpful and informative. In other words, promoting your company or brand without actually ‘selling’.

MORE TOOLS FOR SHARING CONTENT

What has dramatically changed the content marketing landscape, though, is the fact that there are now more tools for sharing content than ever before.

This means what used to be regarded as a ‘soft’ tool that took ages to make anything happen has now emerged as a powerful weapon capable of delivering impressive results pretty quickly.

As a result, even global companies like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble are now putting a much greater emphasis on developing an integrated content strategy – creating and distributing original content that is relevant, valuable, informative and entertaining … and shareable.

The great appeal of content marketing is that it can be employed just as effectively by small start-ups and SMEs. You don’t need loads of money to spend on ‘old-school’ techniques such as advertising and direct mail in order to attract customers.

INFOGRAPHIC

To illustrate the growing importance of content marketing, BlueGlass Interactive – a leading Internet marketing specialist based in Tampa, Florida – has created an excellent infographic called The Content Marketing Explosion.

TAKE A LOOK …

Created by BlueGlass Interactive

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications. 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Over-50s baby boomers increasingly important target for content marketing

Content-hungry baby boomers are becoming an increasingly important target audience for content marketers in many different product sectors.

Key content marketing tools for engaging with this audience include: customer-focused blogs, magazine-style brand microsites, social media content, eNewsletters, digital magazines, videos, and ‘how-to’ eGuides.

The over-50s are not only spending more and more time browsing the Internet (at least 85 minutes a day, according to Neilsen), they are also accounting for a growing share of the total UK online audience.

Figures produced by the UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) show that so-called ‘silver surfers’ now make up just over 31 per cent of the 39 million people who have access to the Internet in the UK. Victor Meldrew they are not…

OVER-50s WEBSITES

Popular websites include Saga, RealAge, video site Flixxy, and the new online music site SH-BOOM! which is aimed at older music fans who grew up during the “rock ‘n’ roll years” of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s.

“The internet is getting older in more ways than one,” said UKOM’s Alex Burmaster. “Not only is the medium itself maturing but the audience is shifting towards older age groups. There is a still a perception that the net is youth-centric but this is clearly not the reality.”

BABY BOOMERS DOMINATE CONSUMER SPENDING

There are now more than 21 million people aged over 50 in the UK, and the over-65s already outnumber those aged 16 and under. These ‘grey’ consumers currently control around 40 per cent of consumer spending and 80 per cent of the country’s wealth.

The number of over-50s is set to grow by 20 per cent over the next six years, and half of the UK’s adults will be aged 50 or over by the year 2020.

Many computer companies have recognised the unique needs of these older consumers and are creating new products that cater for their requirements. SimplicITy Computers, for example, has developed stripped-down PCs that are easier for older people to use.

Initiatives such as these are giving a growing number of older consumers the confidence to go online and search for content that will inform or entertain them.

FASTEST-GROWING GROUP

People over 50 are the Internet’s fastest-growing group, according to Neilsen. They spend more time online than anyone else, and research by SilverPoll has found that more of them own digital readers than 16-24 year olds.

The over-50s already account for more than a quarter of Facebook’s audience, and some 40 per cent of UK internet users in this age group are involved in a social network of some kind.

These older age groups are notoriously difficult to reach through traditional media. When they were teenagers, they were the people who created the ‘consumer society’ in the first place – so they’re marketing-savvy and less likely to be influenced by old-style ‘interruption marketing’ techniques.

For businesses targeting mature audiences, online content marketing can therefore provide an important channel for engaging with these customers.

CONTENT MUST BE TAILORED

But the over-50s are not a single homogenous group. They’re made up of people with many different kinds of life experiences and each age-group has very different values, beliefs and attitudes.

This means content has to be carefully tailored to reflect these differences.

Many older people say they use the Internet to “seek experiences and have fun”. So it is essential to understand the kinds of information they are likely to want at each step of the purchase process – and then engage with them by telling compelling, relevant, informative and entertaining stories that baby boomers want to hear.

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Integration of mobile into content marketing increasingly important, says new report

by Brian Oliver

With more consumers now accessing content via their mobile devices, businesses are starting to generate substantial sales as a result of mobile content marketing campaigns, says a new report from media econometrics provider PQ Media.

The report found that a content strategy that included tailoring content to the fast-expanding mobile market helped US companies generate more than $39 billion in revenue in 2011 – an increase of 27.8 per cent over 2010.

Although the PQ Media report focuses on the US market, integrating mobile into content-led marketing strategies in the UK should create similar opportunities to increase sales leads and revenue.

MOBILE SEARCH EQUALLY IMPORTANT

According to PQ Media, mobile search is set to become increasingly important as the global mobile audience continues to grow.

The report suggests that keyword strategies and content creation should be adjusted to take mobile users into account – so that companies can offer sales prospects the same level of informational support whether they’re at home or on the move.

Patrick Quinn, CEO of PQ Media, says the key growth drivers include “strong growth in overall mobile device penetration, the transition to smartphones and tablets, the torrent of new mobile content launches, and the continued growth of consumer and business time spent with mobile media”.

A recent study by Google and market research company Ipsos found that 69 per cent of smartphone owners access the mobile web at least once every day.

Google says gaining a better understanding of the mobile content market will allow businesses to tailor their marketing more effectively. 

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications. 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Content marketing agencies set to replace traditional ad agencies?

by Brian Oliver

The content marketing agency is replacing the traditional ad agency for many companies, insists Jon Wuebben, CEO of ContentLaunch, in his latest book Content Is Currency: Developing Powerful Content for Web & Mobile (Nicholas Brealey Publishing).

“In the process,” says Wuebben, “these firms are savings thousands of dollars and reaching thousands more as a result.

“Content marketing is the lynchpin of all successful online business endeavours.”

Even Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest marketer, seems to have finally woken up to the growing power of content-led marketing.

According to Jim Edwards of BusinessInsider.com, P&G’s CEO Robert McDonald recently told Wall Street analysts that he would have to “moderate” the company’s $10 billion advertising budget because Facebook and Google can be “more efficient” than the traditional media that usually account for the lion’s share of P&G’s ad spend.

In Content Is Currency, Jon Wuebben explains why … and how.

He describes the fine art of content development and shows how customer-grabbing content can tell the story of a product or a business.

He looks at how to optimise content for search and social media so that it gets noticed, and provides an insider’s view on the ever-expanding technology and content marketing landscape. The book also includes a suggested “road map to online marketing success”.

Content Is Currency: Developing Powerful Content for Web & Mobile is available on Amazon in all major formats.

More information is available at http://www.contentiscurrency.com where Chapter 1 can be downloaded for free. 

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications. 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Google updates are making quality content the dominant factor in SEO

by Brian Oliver

More marketers are finding that Google’s recent changes and updates to its ranking system are now making quality content the key driver in search engine optimisation (SEO).

At the same time, the changes are shrinking the importance of technical SEO tactics led by mathematicians rather than genuine information providers.

This dramatic change in SEO presents an enormous opportunity for content marketers to gain a competitive advantage over rival brands – especially if their competitors are not yet using content-led solutions, such as customer-focused blogs, social media, targeted eNewsletters, videos, eBooks, white papers and eGuides.

MARKETING OPPORTUNITY

Now more than ever, the consistent use of high-quality, keyword-driven content, such as that provided by Focus Content Marketing, can elevate your website to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) … and keep you there.

That’s why content marketing is now seen as one of the most effective online marketing techniques available to marketing managers – and why many observers are tipping content-led marketing to explode in 2012.

IMPACT OF GOOGLE CHANGES

Last year saw some of the biggest and most important changes to Google’s algorithm, including the controversial Panda update which reportedly knocked the wind out of the sails of several high-ranking sites.

Ever conscious of the need to keep improving its service to users, Google introduced these algorithm changes because it recognised that some websites with top Google rankings were simply high-traffic, low-quality content sites stuffed with keywords.

It set out to limit the visibility of poorly-written filler material created by content ‘farmers’ in favour of sites boasting better-quality authoritative content.

HIGHER RANKINGS

Google now uses quantifiable social engagement metrics and recorded data (such as the length of time people spend on a page) to determine how valuable a page is to everyone who lands there.

When people spend longer browsing certain pages, Google assumes the content has been read and the user obtained the information they were looking for. The search engines consequently give those pages a higher ranking.

If your content is well-written, informative and puts the reader first, it is more likely to keep your potential customer on the page – and Google will recognise this. In other words, if you publish content that keeps your readers happy, Google will be happy too.

Similarly, quality content with higher incoming links will also be displayed at the top of the search results.

MORE CUSTOMERS

Most importantly, though, delivering trustworthy, problem-solving content will not only elevate you in the search rankings, it will also show potential customers or clients how you can help them. It will enable you to gain their trust … and potentially lead to a positive purchasing decision!

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications. 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing