Content marketing is changing the Internet for good.
Until 2011, search results were populated with low-quality crap sites that were full of bad content. Paid links, and "black hat" link building worked like a charm, and content duplication and spam wasn't penalized.
Those days, thankfully, are gone. Content marketing is still in a quasi-early adoption phase, but more marketers are baking it into their strategies.
Companies doing content marketing see 209% more marketing-driven revenue.
Content marketing doubles conversion rates.
Content marketing has shown to dramatically decrease cost per lead.
And apart from the benefits to business, content marketing is helping to change the culture of the web. This post is my exploration into how.
The Interweb's Devious Tricks
Imagine you are buying a new car. What do you do first? Do you drive along the main road in your town until you find a dealership and then immediately go for a test drive?
Probably not.
You go online and research "cars." Or maybe, you already have an inkling of what you want so you research "small SUVs." You're looking for comparative analyses, user recommendations, functional details, and user complaints so you can go into that dealership with information and final questions. These bits of literature, online reviews, and videos are all content. It doesn't really matter who publishes them. What you-as the buyer-are looking for is authentic, honest answers to your most burning questions.
In the past, marketers used some shady tactics to lure web visitors on to their product websites. You'd click on flashy ads that said "We sell SUVs!" that redirected you to four door sedans. Or worse, you'd click on a link about cars, and would land on a website selling diet pills.
In fact, if you ever clicked on a web-ad in the early 2000s, you probably know what I'm talking about.
Even though marketers don't have a reputation for being number-savvy (although that's changing, too), we figured this one out:
1 tricked customer = 1 pissed off customer = 1 lost customer
The bait-and-switch internet ad strategy needed some re-configuration.
Changing Old School Marketing Gimmicks into Relevant, Meaningful Information
Even though customers didn't like being tricked by shiesty advertisement schemes, they did keep coming back to the web to look for-and buy-products.
But it wasn't the ads or "banner promos" people cared about. It was the real content. People were drawn to the authentic commentary and information about products they wanted to buy. They wanted to make more informed purchase decisions.
Still, some marketers tried to scam people with the concept of "authentic content." Marketers started to contribute "useful information" by adding fake comments and user reviews to their products, while simultaneously derailing competitor's products with one-star ratings and scathing reviews.
Thank goodness Google cares about this stuff.
Throughout the early 2010s, Google waged war against sneaky marketers, resulting in a series of algorithmic updates designed to cure the web of shady marketing practices. Hummingbird, Penguin, and Panda are just a few of literally hundreds of other smaller updates that cleaned up these dirty marketing efforts.
Each of Google's algorithmic shift underscored one major tenet: the only content that's going to "count" is content that is authentic, original, and relevant.
"If you're producing content on the Internet that users want to read, and it's being published on well-known sites in front of the right audience, then you have nothing to worry about. If, however, you're publishing content solely for the purpose of getting a link, and maybe the site accepts blog posts from anyone and everyone-then you may very well have problems in the future." -Matt Cutts, the head of Webspam at Google, 2013
That's when the switch finally clicked. Marketers came to realize that to keep business listings and content high in search engine ranks, they were going to have to pump out meaningful and high quality content. More importantly, businesses needed to supply web viewers with information that was interesting, compelling, educational, or relevant to their lives.
This began to reshape the quality of information and content throughout the web. Instead of solely promoting brands, content marketing started serving the people.
Look for Examples
For evidence, just take a look at your Facebook Newsfeed. The stuff you comment on, or care about, are stories that have meaning to you. (Or, at a bare minimum, they have entertainment value.) Sometimes, those pieces of content are user-generated. Other times the stories are built by businesses or corporations. But that's the beauty of it-as a user you can't tell, or better, you don't care.
This is the definition of buyer-centric content. Buyer-centric content is built to deliver something relevant or meaningful to a buyer. There isn't an asterisk that demands, "Buy my product." It's just genuinely and authentically created to be useful to a buyer.
As an example, I'll share with you a post I recently shared on my Facebook wall. It was this:
As a lover of the outdoors, and regular camper, this image sang sweet lullabies to my inner wild child. I loved it. I shared it to my Facebook wall, and watched as several dozen of my other friends liked it, shared it to their own walls, and thanked me for sharing it on my wall.
In fact, this image garnered 23,752 likes and 59,415 shares.
But who made it? Was I helping Mother Nature with her marketing? Of course not.
In fact, it was supporting the marketing efforts of The Scout Association, a group of volunteers in the UK who help get British youth into the great outdoors. The impressions that nearly 60,000 shares receives is probably astronomical for the small association. Each of those individuals that shared and liked that post did so because they were grateful for such a creative representation of something that speaks to their passions.
Content Marketing = More Informed People + Delightful Content - Bait-and-Switch Tactics
This is what the web is becoming: a land of relevant content that is strategically designed to delight users.
The Internet no longer rewards crappy ads, gimmicky tricks, or shiny web bait to lure unsuspecting users. It's becoming increasingly buyer-centric and buyer-empathetic. Corporations, brands, and for-profit businesses are putting on the shoes of their consumer, and delivering exactly the stuff they want. This is a major shift in how marketing has been done.
I don't even know the Scout Association, but I know I like them. Because they-like me-choose the five billion star hotel.