Intervju med Joe Pulizzi

Joe Puliz­zi bör­ja­de använ­da “con­tent mar­ke­ting” redan 2001. 13 år sena­re är ter­men på allas läp­par. Och han själv är dess störs­te guru och främs­te evan­ge­list. Den 22 maj berät­tar han för dig (om du kom­mer till Con­tent Mee­tup i Göte­borg) vad con­tent mar­ke­ting är. Men jag kan inte hål­la mig. Jag kon­tak­ta­de Joe Puliz­zi och gjor­de den­na inter­vju, som av natur­li­ga skäl är på eng­els­ka. God läsning!

Vad är content marketing?

Tho­mas Bar­re­gren: Mr. Joe Puliz­zi, sin­ce you are the fat­her of con­tent mar­ke­ting, its gre­a­test guru and chi­ef evan­ge­list, I must ask you: What is con­tent marketing?

Joe Puliz­zi: Con­tent mar­ke­ting is the practice of cre­a­ting and dis­tri­bu­ting valu­ab­le and rele­vant con­tent to attract and retain custo­mers. It is gene­ral­ly edi­to­ri­al dri­ven (not pro­duct-focu­sed con­tent), focu­sed on driving a beha­vi­or bac­ked with a mar­ke­ting goal, and con­si­stent­ly deli­ve­red to customers.

Think of it like being a media com­pa­ny but not having to sell adver­ti­sing or char­ging for the con­tent. The goal of the con­tent mar­ke­ter is to ulti­ma­tely sell more pro­ducts and ser­vices, but gene­ral­ly the con­tent cre­a­tion pro­cess is simi­lar to media com­pa­ni­es. The brand will cre­a­te high qua­li­ty con­tent, in one or mul­tip­le chan­nels, over a peri­od of time, for free — to cre­a­te or main­tain some kind of pro­fi­tab­le custo­mer action.

The deli­ve­ra­bles of con­tent mar­ke­ting tend to be blogs, custom maga­zi­nes, events, webi­nar seri­es, ebooks, rese­arch pro­jects, email news­let­ters etc.

In the paid, ear­ned and owned buc­kets of a mar­ke­ting orga­ni­za­tion, this is com­ple­tely in the “owned” buc­ket, alt­hough many com­pa­ni­es buy paid media to pro­mo­te their con­tent. For examp­le, this is what nati­ve adver­ti­sing is. We see nati­ve adver­ti­sing (cre­a­ting con­tent on a publisher’s plat­form for a fee) as a good stra­te­gy for get­ting peop­le to engage in your content…but ulti­ma­tely we want tho­se peop­le to be enga­ging direct­ly with our platform.

Varför hittade du på ”content marketing”?

Tho­mas: You came up with ”con­tent mar­ke­ting” in 2001. What hap­pened around that time that cau­sed you to start using that expression?

Joe: In 2001, I was run­ning a custom media divi­sion of a lar­ge publishing com­pa­ny. That meant I had to meet with a num­ber of seni­or mar­ke­ters and explain the values of them cre­a­ting and dis­tri­bu­ting their own con­tent ins­te­ad of just adver­ti­sing or PR. This was not easy.

One of the big­gest issues was that eve­ry­o­ne cal­led it somet­hing dif­fe­rent. Custom publishing, custom media, brand jour­na­lism, custo­mer media, etc. It’s very hard to educa­te peop­le when eve­ry­o­ne calls what you do somet­hing different.

So I tri­ed to use dif­fe­rent terms for the practice of con­tent mar­ke­ting. When I used “con­tent mar­ke­ting” as the term, this was the one that seni­or mar­ke­ters were most drawn to…so I star­ted to use the term more and more. Then in 2007, 2008, 2009 more and more orga­ni­za­tions star­ted to pick up on the term. This allo­wed our disci­pli­ne to grow…since we were all now tal­king the same language.

Yes, the­re is still a lot of con­fu­sion around what con­tent mar­ke­ting is…some peop­le think this is soci­al media, some think PR…but at least now we are all on a simi­lar page.

And now, the indu­stry has taken off. The com­bi­na­tion of con­su­mer con­trol over con­tent, no bar­ri­ers to entry for publishers, soci­al media and Google’s algo­rithm changes have all cre­a­ted boom times for con­tent mar­ke­ting. Brands are cre­a­ting media divi­sions, hiring jour­na­lists, and try­ing to figu­re out the disci­pli­ne. We still have a long way to go, but we are hea­ded in the right direction.

Varför har intresset för content marketing exploderat just nu?

Tho­mas: In begin­ning of 2013, almost nobo­dy in Swe­den had heard of con­tent mar­ke­ting. Now eve­ry­o­ne is tal­king about it. What has enabled this change? Why now? Is it a hype?

Joe: First of all, that is gre­at news.

Second, think of it this way. Con­su­mers have all the con­trol. In the past, the­re were only a few chan­nels to get infor­ma­tion, and were pret­ty much for­ced into the con­tent pro­du­ced on tho­se chan­nels. Now, con­su­mers can get any infor­ma­tion they want…they are free.

At the same time, con­su­mers can com­ple­tely igno­re all our sales and mar­ke­ting infor­ma­tion. They don’t need us at all, and the majo­ri­ty of con­tent coming from com­pa­ni­es today is about the com­pa­ny. That’s a gre­at way to get ignored.

So what do we do to get atten­tion? We need to become publishers. We need to deli­ver ama­zing infor­ma­tion and build rela­tions­hips with custo­mers through our con­tent, not just our pro­ducts and services.

Com­pa­ni­es around the world are just figu­ring this out. This means a lot of change, pain and strugg­le in lar­ge orga­ni­za­tions. We’ve built our mar­ke­ting depart­ments around paid media…now we need to even things out a bit and start buil­ding up our con­tent divisions.

Vad kommer du prata om på Content Meetup 2014?

Tho­mas: You are key­no­te spea­ker at Con­tent Mee­tup on May 22 in Gothen­burg. What will you talk about?

I’m going to talk about con­tent marketing…what it real­ly is. I’m going to discuss why so many orga­ni­za­tions are doing it the wrong way, and how com­pa­ni­es can do very simp­le things to get star­ted on the right foot. At the end of the talk, I want peop­le to be inspi­red about the possibilities…because to make con­tent mar­ke­ting hap­pen in most orga­ni­za­tions, it requires change. We need con­tent mar­ke­ting cham­pi­ons to make that happen.

Är ditt besök den 22 maj det första i Sverige?

Tho­mas: Will this be your first visit in Swe­den or Scandinavia?

Joe: I have been to Fin­land many times. I’ve also been to Nor­way and Denmark…but NEVER Swe­den. I’m real­ly loo­king for­ward to it.

Var hittar jag mer information?

Tho­mas: Mr. Puliz­zi, thank you for taking time to answer the­se ques­tions. If some­o­ne wan­t’s to know more about con­tent mar­ke­ting, whe­re can they find information?

Joe: You can find infor­ma­tion about me and the event at the www​.knt​nt​.se/​m​a​g​a​s​i​n​et/ page. Infor­ma­tion about Con­tent Mar­ke­ting Insti­tu­te can be found at www​.con​tent​mar​ke​tingin​sti​tu​te​.com. My latest book, Epic Con­tent Mar­ke­ting, can be found at www​.epic​con​tent​mar​ke​ting​.com. And on Twit­ter, I’m @JoePulizzi.

Möt Joe Pulizzi

Du träf­far och kan själv pra­ta med Joe Puliz­zi om du kom­mer till Con­tent Mee­tup den 22 maj i Göte­borgs konserthus.

Där får du även träf­fa Lena Hill­stedt, mark­nads­chef på Grann­går­den, som på fem år har ställt om till con­tent mar­ke­ting, och idag fång­ar in 65% av kun­der­na via före­ta­gets egna kana­ler. Grann­går­den är en detal­jist­ked­ja med 109 buti­ker över hela Sve­ri­ge som omsät­ter 1,6 miljarder.

Dess­utom får du själv, eller någon annan fri­vil­lig ur publi­ken hjälp att kom­ma igång med con­tent mar­ke­ting – på scen inför 200 åhörare.

Vill du inspi­re­ras och lära dig mer om jord­nä­ra con­tent mar­ke­ting är det­ta ett till­fäl­le du inte bör mis­sa! Köp bil­jett NU och få 40% rabatt!