What is content marketing?
I hate blogs that start “if you’re reading this…”. Because I am. I am reading it. They’re wasted words.
But anyway, if you’re reading this, you’ll have noticed that my website is live. After much soul-searching and Squarespace-wrangling, I finally got the thing finished over Christmas. The main reason for doing it was to drive new business (and I’d therefore be remiss if I didn’t suggest you get in touch about that here). But the other reason was so that I could finally explain to my mum what my job is.
This has always been a sticking point. My sister is a teacher, which she gets. I do something to do with writing and also something to do with tech, which she does not.
No shade on my mum. Content is one of those words that can mean a lot, but usually boils down to very little when you ask people to explain it. And that’s fine if you’re a 65 year-old Irish woman with no skin in the game, but not great if you’re leading marketing at a startup.
Startup content marketing: the basics
No shade on people leading marketing at startups either, it’s a tough gig. There is a huge amount of pressure on you to get everything from product marketing to PR, events, operations and more up and running, and to be bringing quality leads in from day one. Content is almost certainly one of the bigger things on your list. And even though most startups know they need to invest in content marketing, you’d be surprised how few of them can put their finger on why.
It’s not unusual. I didn’t know when I started either. There was a long, dark period of flinging blogs out into the ether before I figured it out. So, to save you wasting as much time banging your head against a wall as I did, here are the basics.
What content marketing is:
Content marketing is a service function. That’s not to say it should be reactive, or that you shouldn’t look for ways to make it excellent in its own right. But you should not be doing content for the sake of doing content. Do it to support other marketing and business goals – like building brand awareness, driving inbound leads, speeding up the sales cycle, nurturing clients, whatever. It can be used in service of all of these goals and more.
Content marketing is loads of different stuff besides blogs. Crucially, one stone will not kill all of those birds. Sometimes it will kill a couple, but only if you really aim it right. A BLOG is not the silver bullet you think it is. I go on about this a lot, but people almost always point to blogs when you ask them what content is. Blogs are really only one very small and very specific part of a whole spectrum of content. Content is everything from your website to case studies, thought leadership, product overviews, research reports, sales emails...and so on and so on and so on. Each of those formats does a different job, depending on who it’s for and where (and why) you’re using it.
Content marketing is about relationship building. Whatever format your content is in and whatever goal you’re using it in service of, the one thing content should always try to do is build relationships. It’s the vehicle for your brand, the way in which you articulate what you’re about. But that should be show, not tell. It’s like any other relationship – the way you get to know a person is to spend time with them, chat about shared interests, give advice, learn stuff, have fun. Content’s the same. It’s about building a valuable relationship into the long-term rather than trying to sell stuff in the short.
What content marketing is not:
Content marketing is not all about production. Your CEO is going to expect to see some output, which is fair. But for content marketing to have any impact at all, you need to spend at least as much time on strategy as you do production. If you don’t start by working out who your audience is, what you should be talking to them about and why you’re talking to them at all, you won’t get very far. And that’s before you do all the stakeholder management, process-building and reporting. Churning loads of stuff out is a superficial measure of success; if you’re always in the weeds of execution, your strategy (and scalability) is going to suffer.
Content marketing is not copywriting. Which brings me to my next point. Content marketing is maybe 10% about words on page (or “wordsmithing” which, fun fact, is my most loathed phrase). But for whatever reason, it’s where about 99% of attention goes. Quite often, internal stakeholders will pick over individual word choice instead of looking at the bigger picture, and that’s where tension arises. It’s worth setting expectations early about what content actually is, what good looks like and how to give useful feedback. Copywriting is very much icing, and first you need a cake. See point one.
Content marketing is not sales. When I talk about internal stakeholders, I am obviously talking about marketing’s best friend and worst enemy, sales. They are going to be the guys nitpicking when your content does not directly help them close a deal. But you’re not trying to close a deal, you’re trying to build a relationship. To go back to our earlier analogy – would you want to be friends with someone who just talked about themselves all the time? Or doorstopped you to ask for a favour with no preamble? For your sake, I very much hope the answer to this is no.
Why startups need content marketing
Like I said, there are lots of reasons. But in general, a lot of startups live and die by their brand – and content is about the best way of getting yours out there.
I’ll talk more about figuring out your why in the next one of these. As a veteran of startup content marketing, I know pretty well what your challenges are and by now, have a decent idea of how to solve them. I’ll be sharing a series of blogs (yes! blogs!) over the next few months to help startups get started with content marketing – so if that’s your bag, make sure you’re subscribed.
