9 Definitions: How Content Marketing Works Within Marketing. Content marketing vs. content Definitive post: What is the Difference Between Content and Content Marketing? Product pitches often focus on sales. Product pitches are short-lived. Content marketing vs branded content Joe Pulizzi loathes the term branded content as people continually confuse it with content marketing. Content brands. Native advertising is simply a way for brands to distribute their content on another publisher’s platform as a way to attract a new audience. Joe explains: If you pay for placement, it’s advertising. Pitch story ideas to relevant media contacts. As Toby Murdock explained in 2012 – and is still as relevant today – social media fulfills two primary objectives: It generates awareness for the brand by providing a platform with a built-in audience.
One topic that generates a lot of interest on our blog is how
content marketing relates to other disciplines. Readers want to
understand how content marketing fits within their overall
marketing plan, and we have written about this topic over time.
Next time you are asked – or simply wonder – how content
marketing is related to insert your approach of choice,
come back to this post for a quick explanation.
I am including screenshots from Google Trends so you can see the
popularity of the terms over the past five years.
Content marketing vs. content
Definitive post:
What is the Difference Between Content and Content
Marketing?
This first definition looks at content in general. Michael
Brenner’s post is one of the top-shared posts on our website in the
past year, and the premise is simple yet important. Marketing
content does not equal content marketing. He explains:
Content marketing is about attracting an audience to
an experience (or ‘destination’) that you own, build, and optimize
to achieve your marketing objectives.
Content is everywhere. There’s
product content, sales content, customer-service
content, event content, employee-generated content, marketing and
campaign content. Even advertising is content.
With content marketing you are attracting an audience to a
brand-owned destination versus interrupting or buying an audience
on someone else’s platform.
Related approaches to content marketing
The next definition categories are approaches related to – and
can be used in tandem with – content marketing.
Content marketing strategy vs. content strategy
Definitive post:
A Take on 3 Confusing Terms: Content Marketing, Content Strategy,
and Content Marketing Strategy
Melanie Seibert helps clarify the difference between content
strategy and content marketing strategy:
I see content marketing strategy as a sub-discipline of
content strategy. Let’s start by clarifying the difference between
these two terms:
- Content strategy is a
sub-discipline of user experience (UX). A person in that
role considers an organization’s content holistically and shapes
the way that body of content influences people’s experiences with
the brand. Content strategists think about how all the
organization’s content fits together. As Rahel Anne Bailie puts it,
‘content strategy’ equates to an ‘umbrella
strategy.’
- Content marketing strategy deals
specifically with
content marketing. Content marketing strategists
determine what content will build the customer base by
helping people make decisions or solve problems at various points
in their experience with the brand.
Melanie’s post also breaks down how content marketing fits in
with the work of web analysts, content strategists, web editors,
and web writers.
Content marketing vs. product marketing
One common question is similar to one posted to me on Bruce
McDuffie’s podcast,
Manufacturing Marketing Matters:
We are working on our audience-facing mission statement, but
we’re having a hard time understanding (lots of heated discussions
with sales and product) how educating the audience without pitching
the product will help us grow the business. Could you elaborate on
that concept?”
My background is in product marketing, so I understand
first-hand what a challenge it can be to transition from product
marketing to content marketing. While product-marketing groups are
evolving to be audience-focused, some of them are stuck in
“product-pitch” mode (not all product marketers, but it is a
challenge faced by many).
Here are the big differences when someone wants to simply pitch
a product:
- Content marketing creates a more knowledgeable customer.
Product pitches…
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