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Ok, so: We’ve finally discovered that telling a story well and presenting it in a compelling way is the most effective way to grow business.
The history of content marketing offers a deep, dark, exciting and expensive history, worth mention:
1995. White Paper. Noone was sure where the web or marketing or content marketing was going to go. Design was changing the help of Adobe, MacroMedia, QuarkExpress and Microsoft. New tools for designers, copywriters and content marketing specialists. The text base roots of the academic start of the web were changing. Interactivity was the driving force thousands of companies decided all at once was what they needed to compete with CDRoms, Desktop Publishing, Multimedia Collaboration and more. Excitement was in the air. Content Marketing was born perhaps with the famous white paper.
1997. The Early Years. The disk is king. Floppy and CD ROM. AOL mailed out floppy’s to millions. Slowly freighted with technology difficulties, these content vehicles just did not take off. Dedicated practitioners banged out new media work, but the very criterion for judging what works and what does not work was not clear. Remember “Myst” and “The Residents Freakshow” that told an entertaining story in an interactive way? It was the age of the daring pioneers that typically produced one-hit content wonders that spawned dozens of successful imitators. The white paper was forced to upgrade slightly to keep up.
2000. Golden Years. Interactive agencies had “executive directors” and the entire content marketing field suddenly became more professional. Creative Copychiefs did all the work and learned to spin a different story with just the right spin. Virtually every major company had a website, and the Web was labeled as the future, unique, unparalleled, a revolution. Portals, convergence and one-to-one marketing sprang out of thin air. Businesses were all talking about who was cutting edge, leading edge or bleeding edge. The white paper was now part of the Chief Technology Officer bag of tricks.
2002. Dot Bomb. With record CPM’s, crazy PPC’s and introduction of CPA, the future looked bright for content marketing. But to many VC firms tossed big bucks at bad ideas, and it all came to an abrupt halt. The official Dot Bomb. We all lost money, pride, and pointed fingers at various villains. Content certainly got lost in the nuclear dust. Heck, the web got lost in the dust. The first and last companies to fall were the giants with big payrolls and no revenue. Web marketing seemed doomed. The white paper rises from the ashes and states “ I told you so”.
2004. Testing 123. Experimentation combined with rapid advancement in technology and bandwidth and analytics which lifted content marketing out of the rubble. Success stories were told better then ever, powered by wisdom and insight learned along the way. Flash put words and sound in motion. HTML pages were becoming a thing of the past. The wants and needs of customers were tested with multivariate and A/B testing. Copywriters and Designers finally had methods to test different headlines, graphics and copy and find out what works. Test after test, the white paper still worked well in driving leads and sales.
2005. SEO. Search Engine Optimization makes it’s way into the content marketing sphere. Successful companies learn achieve top listings despite lack of quality content and dubious value. The Google pattern confirms link popularity might be the secret sauce. Content becomes the primary gateway to appeal to both readers and the search engines. But readers seemed to be less important than the bots. The white paper was filled with lots of rich keywords for SEO.
2007. Social Content. Social media diggs in deep, and the centerpiece of it all is content marketing. This new form of conversational marketing takes hold with Linked In, FaceBook, Twitter and more. Words matter. Thoughts matter. Opinion matters. And the quality of the content starts to drive success of it all. The white paper gets passed around and debated amongst peers.
2008. Crash 2.0. Once again, the stock market dips to record lows. Marketing budgets are slashed. The entire eco-chain is stalled. Return on investment is demanded for all marketing spend. Affiliate programs seem to rise to the ROI occasion for some companies. But inbound marketing using content as the bait seem to offer a new science to marketing and the tracking necessary along the way. Cold Calls become a thing of the past, replaced by warm calls to prospects that are not always so warm. The 4 C’s are officially introduced: Contacts, Content, Community and Conversion. The white paper did not crash or burn.
2009. Content Marketing. Articles. Webinars. Content Widgets. WordBooks. Slide Decks. Blog Posts. Tweets. RSS feeds. And more. Content Creation. Content Optimization. Content Testing. And more. Words. Sounds. Motion. Emotion. Learning the wants and needs of customers, and delivering it to them in a compelling way. The white paper deemed by peers as boring perhaps, but protected on the endangered species list.
That’s the history of Content Marketing from my perspective. Along with the history of the White Paper… only appropriate for Byron White write about the White Paper. Let me know what you think.
