After several years doing communications for higher ed, I’m familiar with marketing strategies that focus on reputation development as a driver of “sales” (enrollments and research sponsorship in academia). Effective use of proprietary content to establish thought leadership and credible authority was a primary objective of my work and I came to believe that marketers in other kinds of organizations could learn from higher ed in that way.
With that in mind, I’ve been recommending various content marketing strategies to clients over the last couple of months since starting at Jackson Spalding. That’s why the “Debating Brand’s Role As Publishers” panel at SXSW 2011 was first on my list of sessions to attend on Saturday morning. NPR’s Tom Ashbrook led a panel of reporters and content marketers in a heated debate centered around content marketing as effective sales strategy or information pollution. 
Apparently, 25 percent of overall marketing budgets are dedicated to content marketing*, but in many cases it’s being done poorly. This is because there’s little indication of strategy at play and what’s put out there as “content” is largely not compelling or useful to customers, who are there searching for answers. The reporter said there is room for great journalism in branded content, but a hesitancy to cover the full truth (of a product) or the competition prevents a fully trustworthy piece of content.
Brands can drive sales by becoming authoritative sources of information in addition to product manufacturers, and therefore the trusted industry leader. But marketers have a hard time thinking about the curation of their company content as a tool for customer action. As someone said, “people don’t have time and mind space for brands, but they do have 30 minutes for a great story.” If marketers could spend some time thinking like a publisher, and using its (or others’ aggregated) content to tell a story and provide something useful to their customer, they could take their company, brand, product or service beyond the next sale and into the realm of trust-based loyalty.
*There was some debate on where this stat was published, the conclusion was http://www.marketingprofs.com
