Positioning and Strategy in Content Marketing

I sat in on an impromptu SWOT meeting last week. While I think SWOT exercises are useful, I don’t think many people understand how to use them effectively. For example, someone in our group suggested that our newsletters were a strength. I had to ask, what made him think that? The answer was, “Because they’re good.”

The thing about strategy and positioning, especially in content marketing, is this: Nothing you offer is inherently good or bad. What you offer—products and services—is only good or bad in relation to other products and competitors. You might have an awesome newsletter, but your competitor’s might be even more awesome.

When trying to create a strategy and position your content products, it helps to consider what your competitors are doing. Let’s say your competitor has a print newsletter. Starting with that fact now gives you a framework for making strategic decisions. For example, you can make the following choices:

Compete head-to-head: Start your own print newsletter. If you go this route, now’s the time to do a SWOT on your newsletters. Compared to your competitor, rank your design, editorial, circulation, etc. according to whether they are strengths or weaknesses. What are your opportunities and threats?

Compete with variation on the theme: Your competitor has a strong print newsletter? Instead of head-to-head competition, maybe a better strategic decision is to compete with an electronic newsletter.

Compete yin to yang: Delivery platforms like newsletters have advantage and disadvantages. Your competitor may have strong newsletters, but the kind of information they transmit is limited by the platform. Perhaps you should position yourself by supplying different types of content to the market. Be the source of other information and its most effective platforms. Instead of using newsletters to market, why not books, podcasts, blogs, video—things that are distinct from newsletters.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Marketing Strategies Articles, Position Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategy

How to Make a Content Marketing Strategy

The first step to mapping a content marketing strategy is taking stock of your resources. You simply can’t have a content strategy without committing time, money and people. I argue that you do this before you do anything else, even brainstorming. Know what resources you have and then determine what’s feasible.

The application of finite resources toward ostensible goals is the strategic part of content marketing.

You can’t be everything to everyone. Nor can you be everywhere at once. The good news is that neither can your competitors. No matter how strong they are, your competitors all have finite resources from which to draw.
The strategic thinker determines how her competitors use their resources. That information informs how she deploys her own resources. In terms of content marketing, this means analyzing the types of content and platforms favored by competitors.

For example, if her competitor has an active, robust website filled with useful how-to articles, she might decide to:

a)    Pour resources into her own website.
b)    Pour them into a different platform.

If she decides to build up her website, she might decide to

a)    Create a website with how-to articles. If she does this, she will need to distinguish her website by providing three or four times the volume of articles and the quality should be much higher than her competitors. This is a head-to-head strategy that requires massive resources to be effective.

b)    Create a website that offers different but equally valuable content. This could include daily news, articles that entertain, or an online forum where customers can gather to share knowledge and experiences with each other.

If she decides to pour her resources into a different platform, she will have to decide what platform and content will help distinguish herself from her competitors. Too many organizations copy their competitors when they should be actively distinguishing themselves. Content strategy is also the art of using content to position your organization differently in relation to your competitors.

Remember, it is better to do a few things well than many things poorly. A good content marketing strategy will help you determine what one or two things you can do really well given finite resources.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Marketing Strategies Articles, Position Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Position Marketing

Position Your Content Products Successfully

CNBC interviewed the CEO of a large brewery last night and asked about whether consumers would give up beer during the economic recession. His response was no, that consumers haven’t stopped buying beer. What they’ve done instead is look for value. In some instances, that means buying cases instead of six-packs in order to get a price break. In other instances, it means trading down from a more expensive import to a less expensive domestic beer.

The lesson here is that this large brewery has a portfolio of products and brands to meet consumers’ wants. So if consumers trade down to a less expensive beer, the company offers a brand at that price point.

Content products are like beer in the sense that positioning them properly is important to their success. Consumers of information are as different as consumers of beer. Some beer drinkers just want a refreshing light lager the way some information consumers just want summaries and tips. Some beer drinkers want an imperial pilsner the way some information consumers want long-form magazine articles.

Filed under: Content Strategy, Position Marketing, Content Products, Content Strategy, Position Marketing

Improve Your Position Marketing with Better Ad Content

Position marketing and content marketing are so closely related on a strategic level that it’s a wonder more companies don’t see the relationship. It may be that marketing executives are pressed for time or that their education and experience is rooted in tactics, but when I talk to them about positioning, their priorities tend to start with the delivery vehicle. The content they actually deliver seems secondary.

Just take print advertising, for instance. Discussions about positioning revolve too often around where to place the ads and not enough around what’s going in the ads. A lot of money might be spent to put an ad in a high-end magazine because the client wants to be perceived as a high-end brand, but then the ad itself doesn’t carry useful or relevant content.

One of my favorite magazines is Gourmet, because a lot of the advertising also includes recipes, which makes it as useful as the editorial content.  Weber Grill’s ads are a particularly good example of how content marketing is achieved through a print advertising platform. For one thing, they’re not selling ingredients, so the recipes are not designed to blatantly promote their product. Instead, they’re offering useful, relevant content that attracts my attention and causes me to perceive them as a helpful resource.

Effective position marketing requires more than proximity. Standing next to your customers isn’t enough to make you one of them. The lesson from Weber Grill is, you’ve got to speak to customers directly. Your ad must be at least as compelling as the editorial content, or its impact is lost and your money is wasted.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Position Marketing, Content Marketing, Position Marketing

Position Your Brand with Content Marketing

When we talk about positioning, we’re talking about how a company’s brand or product is perceived relative to the other companies and brands in a given market. One company might be perceived as reliable while another is perceived as innovative. Both companies may be reliable and innovative, but in relation to each other, one is ‘known’ for its reliability and the other for its innovation.

Positioning is important because it helps a company differentiate itself from other companies in the market and therefore attract customers who identify with its brand. Content marketing and position marketing go hand-in-hand, because content is a powerful way to communicate differences in brands.

How so? The first step is to think like a publisher. What are the differences between New York Magazine and The New Yorker’s content? Ostensibly, they are both published for New Yorkers first, and the rest of their audience is secondary. They are perceived as two entirely different types of publications.

New York Magazine’s content is written to appeal to a larger, mainstream audience, though not as large or mainstream as People Magazine, for instance. Its content is loaded with graphics and short, scannable content. The New Yorker’s content appeals to an audience that likes to read long, in-depth pieces accompanied by analysis and debate.

Filed under: Position Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Position Marketing