And every time, without fail, the interviewer asks me, “What is the definition of content marketing?” Over the years, I didn’t care much about the answer because the term “content marketing” was always pigeonholed. So after nearly a decade of definition-warping, I think marketers need to start talking about content marketing a little differently. Perhaps more importantly, after all this time, it’s clear that most brands have matured in the way they think about content. To make sure companies are thinking beyond the blog, we’ve begun talking about “marketing with content.” What does that mean? E-commerce content doesn’t typically get bucketed under the content marketing department (or definition), but that doesn’t really matter. Companies will own their audiences by infusing content in every marketing tactic. Organization structures are going to change. And the technology that organizations use needs to change with them. Every brand is the sum of the stories it tells. Either way, it’s time for marketers to start thinking of content as the battery that supercharges everything they do.
I have done hundreds of interviews in the eight years that have passed since I co-founded Contently. And every time, without fail, the interviewer asks me, “What is the definition of content marketing?”
Over the years, I didn’t care much about the answer because the term “content marketing” was always pigeonholed. Since it rose to popularity in the early 2010s (I thank the good folks at Content Marketing Institute!), people largely treated content marketing as a euphemism for things that have been around for a long time: custom publishing, advertorials, owned media.
Of course, content marketing was always more than those things. When done right, it can impact just about every department inside a company, from sales and marketing to human resources and investor relations. So after nearly a decade of definition-warping, I think marketers need to start talking about content marketing a little differently.
Perhaps more importantly, after all this time, it’s clear that most brands have matured in the way they think about content. So it’s time for the industry to do so too.
At Contently, we’ve made a subtle change to address that. To make sure companies are thinking beyond the blog, we’ve begun talking about “marketing with content.” What does that mean? I drew a diagram to…
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