The next wave of content marketing

Content marketing has been a period of history, from the beginning of the simple text, to the later pictures, to personalized custom content, then the next wave of the trend will be it, it may be a mobile application?

For this issue, Scott Brinker has carefully studied that he is behind the popular Marketing Website ChiefMartec.com, Brinker is a serious person, from 947 companies on his site, we can know. He is also CTO of Ion Interactive, and they think there is great potential for future development on the marketing app. Recently, well-known technology blog VentureBeat interviewed him, the article is as follows:

VB: You talked about the wave of 4-wave development that content marketing has undergone. What is the first three rounds?

Brinker: The first wave of the wave is the simple webpage, which is mostly text. The second round has more content and forms, such as videos, slides and well-designed e-books. The third wave of the tide is the application of personalized technology in marketing.

VB: What are the characteristics of the first and second rounds and how do they work?

Brinker: The first round of the wave of revolutionary advances in two ways, first of all the cost of content dissemination to almost zero, and the advent of search engines, so that users can find their own needs. It is precisely because of the first wave of development, it brought the concept of search engine optimization SEO, of course, including content marketing, and now all the companies are trying to introduce more content.

The second wave is accompanied by more visual effects of the image, which has a huge relationship with the emergence of social networks, which has become the primary method of content distribution and dissemination, at which companies are not just pursuing more content , But better content.

Of course, with the development of content marketing, more and more natural information appears, so the biggest question now is how to find out what they need from a lot of noise.

VB: The third wave of personalization has the ability to change the rules of the game?

Brinker: As I said above, the problem now is that too much information and content have exceeded the needs of users, so it makes sense to filter out useless information with personalized technology.

But personalization is not a panacea. We can not expect to predict his future behavior and make recommendations based on just a few clicks by the user. We need a lot of information, not superficial information. And too simple hypotheses and assumptions can only lead to incorrect content and incorrect marketing directions.

Of course, personalization is still important in the context of content marketing, but it is better suited to marketing like this one, recommended by Amazon users, because even the error costs are low.

VB: What do you think the fourth wave is?

Brinker: I think the fourth wave is more interactive content marketing, and larger. The forms are casual, such as marketing tools such as online tools, games, rating software, etc., encompassing a variety of entertainment and educational experiences.

VB: What are its benefits?

Brinker: There's so much information now, and the benefits of a marketing app are more innovative ways to reach potential consumers with what they love. For example, through marketing applications they can see the video inspired by, and this experience can better spread the concept of the brand. For marketers, the user behavior in the application can bring a lot of meaningful discovery.

In general, there are two forms of content marketing, either completely free public or you must first fill in personal contact information, in exchange for this. Marketing applications, for example, can blend two modes, attract a potential customer with free content and then provide more valuable content.

VB: This model is similar to the freemium model for mobile apps.

Brinker: This is a good comparison. With free content to attract users first, and then set the final information extraction means, so that users can get the rest of the content. For example, an intelligence test game, everyone can start free of charge, but in the end hope to get all the results of people need to submit personal contact information, then you can get in the mailbox and other users of the comparison report. This method is used properly, you can get a lot of useful information.

VB: This model has a long history, right?

Brinker: Absolutely. And in the past want to develop these applications, require a lot of input, such as professional IT staff, need a lot of maintenance costs. But now there are many SaaS software-as-a-service offerings that marketers can easily use to dramatically lower their economics. In addition innovations are still emerging in this area, such as my own Ion interactive company to provide marketing software platform.

VB: Is this new marketing model just for a certain type of company?

Brinker: I think like the other three waves, the fourth wave of content marketing is universal. Of course, different companies should adopt different styles of app.

VB: What do you want to say about marketing app?

Brinker: I think interactive interactivity sites work better than mobile apps. Users can use directly, without having to download, in fact, whether it is app or web site, for marketers are the same as each have their own role.