Content may be king but stories are the supreme being
Junta42 recently sent out a questionnaire to aggregate different marketers' opinions on the following question. Here's what I submitted.
Junta42 Question: What is your prediction for how brand marketers will create and distribute their own content in 2010?
Terrain Answer: I'm not sure how we (as a group) will actually do it but I can say what I think we need to do in 2010 and beyond.
First, let me differentiate between B2B brand marketers and consumer brand marketers - these are very different worlds with very different customers and stakeholders.
Also, we need to differentiate between agency side and corporate side.
So, four groups of brand marketers - and we're all on the hot seat! As we should be...
In the consumer world, I believe agency-side brand marketers need to practice what they preach and partner with potential clients to launch their own line of branded products - see the precedent here. I think brand marketers on the agency side will have to put skin in the game to demonstrate their value. The real ROI is always sales first; brand equity, like seventh.
On the corporate side, brand marketers will need to continue the trend toward user-generated content - I know, I know; that's not their own content but what I mean is that marketers will have to create content that solicits / engages consumers to respond and respond often.
One idea could be to open up product development to consumers in a more holistic way - find ways to manufacture and distribute products that have direct consumer input. Among the challenges here will be manufacturing and distribution because we're talking about customized products - but in much the same way that music purchases are now customized by individual song (rather than having to buy the whole album), consumer products companies will have to at least address this issue.
B2B brand marketers have to become much better storytellers. No more bullets in collateral materials and on Web sites. Content has to be about customer successes and, moreso, about customer stories - which sometimes include failures on the way to success.
Stories are drama - point A to point B - where something happens in between - lesson learned, challenge overcome, triumph over struggle. In B2B brand marketing, the stories that demonstrate the value of relationships always win the day. Think about it - people do business with friends, not products. So, the content has to include a new understanding of what the brand is that your selling - it's not just the product or service. You're selling your product or service's ability to help customers write and tell their own next story. If we're doing our job well, we'll be included in the story because we'll write ourselves in and have our customers tell it.