Content Marketing: From Planting Grass to Building Brand IP

What exactly are we talking about when we talk about content marketing ? How to attract users in content marketing? This article provides suggestions and methods for content marketing "from planting seeds to building brand IP".

1. What are we talking about when we talk about content?

When we talk about content, we will find that content is often a very vague and embarrassing existence, because for the entire marketing, everything in marketing today is content, and content is connected with many things.

• Brand advertising ranges from 15-second TVCs, print ads to micro-movies, viral videos, hot posters, and heartfelt copywriting;
• Media placement ranges from buying hard advertising time slots to program sponsorship, film and television placement, and native advertising;
• Marketing promotion ranges from promotional activities to topical event marketing and public relations hype.

Content is not an independent section, but is embedded in the entire corporate marketing.

Examples:

Uber has launched a series of topical event marketing campaigns - one-click to call a mini cooper, one-click to call a lion dance team, one-click to call a rickshaw, one-click to call a wupeng boat, one-click to call Tong Dawei, one-click to call a helicopter, and one-click to call the CEO during the interview season.

2. Create content based on the user’s perspective

• Advertising thinking: Starting from the product selling point or brand concept, try to create creative and less rigid advertising and marketing promotion;
• Content thinking: Start from the user, first see what the user wants to see, start creating complete content, and finally see how to insert the product/brand.

The reason why this content can become popular and become a very influential marketing event is not because it is an advertisement, but because it is first of all an interesting story, but it is also an advertisement at the same time. This is how we market today, so we say that the only standard for content creation is to truly start from the user and truly create something that consumers find useful or interesting.

The only criterion for content creation: truly starting from the users, creating things that they find useful and interesting , such as jokes, funny videos or knowledge.

Examples:

• Durex-Rainy Night Shoe Cover Topic Incident;
• Alipay - The story of Van Gogh's suicide posted by Gu Ye.

3. Content Productization

We should design content like products, iterate, continuously update and promote it, so that the content can continuously accumulate brand assets and brand fans.

1. What is a product?

• Core products (basic utility or benefits that reflect the core needs of customers);
• Form product (the form in which the utility is realized, including: quality, style, characteristics, trademark and packaging);
• Desired product (the set of attributes and conditions that customers expect when purchasing a product);
• Add-on products (additional services and benefits customers receive when purchasing products, including provision of credit, free delivery, product instructions, installation, after-sales service, etc.);
• Potential products (all possible additions and transformations that the product may undergo in the future).

2. The key to content productization

(1) Clarify the core functional components and what user needs they meet;

(2) Independent packaging: name, logo, features, packaging;

(3) Providing a complete experience;

(4) Easy to extend.

A good self-media person is actually a product manager. Each Tweet should have:

• 1. A clear target group;
• Solve 1 problem of the user;
• 1. A clear subject and title;
• A clear point of view.

I often write very long articles, and this one may have more than 10,000 words, close to 20,000 words. Many people would suggest to me why I don’t divide it into three parts, or into 1234 parts. They said that this would reduce the cost of reading for users. However, if we regard a tweet as a product, we need to use an article to clearly answer the user's question and resolve their confusion. You cannot split your product into four parts and ask users to purchase them in batches.

If you take a look at the work background, you will find that for many articles, if an article does not explain a problem clearly and is divided into several articles, the overall reading volume of your articles will become lower and lower. Basically, consumers will only see the first article, and will no longer pay attention to the subsequent articles.

This is a very important point of view to treat content as a product. You must explain this issue clearly in an article, make a very complete interpretation, make this point clear, and give users the most complete introduction. Don't think that I can push an article to consumers today and push it to them again tomorrow. In fact, the person who saw you today may not come tomorrow.

3. Extend content and become IP

IP is the productization of content.

Examples of content productization:

• Xin Shi Xiang’s “Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou”: from a tweet to a marketing campaign, then to a web drama, and then to a brand;
• Planetary Research Institute: public account, books.

4. Content Positioning

Make content a platform for communicating with users.

There is only a period of time from the shooting to the release of each movie. After this period, the movie will be taken off the shelves. We say that movies are one-time content products, which makes movies a very high-risk investment. Because it is one-time, it is difficult to guarantee whether a one-time thing will be successful or a failure. However, after the film company has created the universe, it itself represents a form of thinking, which is that I want to transform the film from a one-time product into a continuous content platform for interpreting my stories, content, and characters. At the same time, once I have this position, I can continue to accumulate fans of my content, such as the Marvel Universe.

The three major content fronts of the enterprise are:

• product;
• We media;
• Marketing campaign IP.

1. Products

When consumers consume and use your products, they are in continuous contact with you. So we say that the product itself is the most natural marketing position for the enterprise.

Examples:

• Coca-Cola lyrics bottle, nickname bottle, and line bottle;
• Jiang Xiaobai's cover quotes;
• Weiquan Daily C, etc.

2. We-media

Companies should decide how to manage content based on the tone of different content platforms, content format and user group characteristics.

Examples:

• HFP: Focuses on ingredient-based skincare, so it is necessary to educate users and choose public accounts, WeChat Moments, and social media;
• Perfect Diary: It is a beauty brand, so it wants to show the effect, so it chooses Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, Douyin, and Weibo;
• Audi: The gameplay on Zhihu and Weibo is different. On Zhihu, you answer questions, and on Weibo, you check in on a daily basis based on hot topics.

Lei Jun has been working hard to endorse the Xiaomi brand and promote its products. In June last year, Mr. Lei launched his Little Red Book. For an entrepreneur who is nearly 50 years old, it is not easy to communicate with a group of female college students born in the 1990s and 2000s. However, Lei Jun has posted 58 notes since he opened Xiaohongshu, which means he posts nearly 10 notes per month on average. Let’s take a look at Lei Jun’s Zhihu. He has only answered two questions in total, and the most recent question was answered two years ago. This means that Lei Jun has not been on his Zhihu for two years.

In fact, Lei Jun has more fans on Zhihu. He has 370,000 fans on Zhihu, but he only has 26,000 fans on Xiaohongshu. But why does he work so hard on Xiaohongshu instead of using Zhihu?

Because he knows where Xiaomi's users are. The group of people who bought Xiaomi phones are on Xiaohongshu, but not on Zhihu, because the average salary of people on Zhihu is one million yuan per year, right? We say that Zhihu is not a very good platform for Xiaomi to sell products, so we see that this is the choice made by companies and business owners in operating their own media, because different content platforms have different users and content formats. (Note: Content operations should be conducted where the target consumer group of the enterprise marketing is)

3. IP-based marketing activities

Today, many companies are using their own media. What is the biggest problem? There are many forms of self-media, but none of them can provide users with a unified experience and expectations. Therefore, you need to turn marketing activities into an IP, communicate with users continuously, and help the company continuously accumulate brand assets.

Examples:

• Amway Nutrilite: We have been doing healthy running for 18 years and have turned it into an event brand. Create a festival. Xiaomi’s Red Tuesday and Orange Friday;
• Color Run: It has been going on for several years and has a loyal following;
• Other examples: corporate festivals, such as Double 11, JD.com’s 618, Xtep 321 Running Festival, Taobao Shopping Festival, Xiaomi Red Tuesday/Orange Friday, Xiaomi Mi Fan Festival, etc.

Many companies hold different activities every year, which costs money, but consumers can’t remember them. It is better to do one thing continuously so that consumers will be impressed. When you continue to work on IP, and it finally becomes a very influential one with its own IP, popularity, and fans, you no longer need to continue investing in it, but it can feed back to you. This is a very important point when we talk about IP, because IP can accumulate fans and brand assets.

For example, Marvel does not need to invest huge amounts of money to promote a new movie every time it is about to release one, because many of the characters in the movie are already familiar to users and already have a fan base.

In fact, IP is not necessarily something that only big companies can afford. Many companies can play with their own IP. You don’t need to have a big festival every year. For example, even if it’s an offline supermarket or a store, if I hold a promotion every month, can I design the promotion to have a fixed time, a fixed name, and a fixed way of playing? In this way, every time you promote this event, it will accumulate and eventually become an IP. This IP can create your own private traffic and bring you more value.

Author: Empty-handed

Source: Kotler Marketing Strategy