How should self-media content marketing accept advertising?

Let’s talk about content marketing today. In simple terms, it is about how self-media should accept advertisements.

Thank you all for your kindness. I am a KOL in the marketing industry. I am not ashamed to admit that I still have to take advertisements. Recently, I have been thinking about how to take advertisements in a anti-fragile way, which means taking advertisements that are liked by both readers and brands. I would like to report some small experiences to you.

From what I have observed, in the current industry, being loved by fans and being loved by brands are like fish and bear's paw, and it is almost impossible to have both.

Either there are few ads and fans can skip them and continue watching the content, or the ads are too hard and affect the quality of the content.

This problem has troubled countless self-media and marketers. Recently, based on my thoughts, I had a chat with cutting-edge content media in the industry. Fans almost want them to take more advertisements, and brands are lining up to work with them. They even directly support the debut of new brands. How do they do it? Interpret together.

Next, I will share my thoughts and cutting-edge cases, hoping to improve the efficiency of content marketing.

Content Marketing Moves Towards a Red Ocean of Traffic

Let me talk about the problem first. I have always felt that the entire content marketing is sick. There is an opposition between KOLs and brands. Either the store bullies the customers, or the customers bully the store. It is rare that both parties are satisfied, unless the KOL's data is all fake and they change it until the client is satisfied.

Most KOLs or content media with an attitude almost always accept advertisements "secretly", for fear that their fans will know that they are advertising. They try to reduce advertising placement as much as possible, which is almost equivalent to just verbally broadcasting the advertisement in the content. Most of them are very restrained and accept advertisements with a mentality of being both responsible and independent.

A content media in the industry with a quotation of over one million has a very mature routine for accepting advertisements. It writes an interesting content at the beginning, makes a sudden turn at the end of the article, and then abruptly inserts an irrelevant advertisement. Fans left messages one after another, saying that the ad was so cool, it was a perfect twist, and the editor was so talented. Everyone was mesmerized by the editor's talent and perfect twist, and it didn't matter what the ad was about.

As a marketer on the client's side, I am strongly opposed to this kind of sudden advertising twist, especially since the price quoted is very high. They collect money from content marketing but do blatant patch advertising. You think you are selling content, but you are actually selling traffic.

Content marketing has been talked about for many years, but most content media are not doing content marketing at all. "Content marketing" is a word, which means content plus marketing, and the effect of 1+1 is greater than or equal to 2. However, the current situation is content and marketing, content is content, advertising is advertising, and 1+1 is less than 1.

This approach is bound to be fragile and unsustainable.

For brands, it is equivalent to placing traditional advertisements on new media; for readers, they can choose to skip the advertisement stage directly; for KOLs, taking too many such advertisements will also hurt their fans. Brands, KOLs, and readers are all very conflicted.

Party A will become more and more aware, and will be less and less likely to buy into content marketing that is like patch ads. Therefore, we must think about how to break the situation, how to better serve brands and fans, form an anti-fragile win-win situation, and truly evolve into content marketing.

Last week I went to meet a friend from DingXiang Doctor. As an institutional media with deep roots in the health field, they not only produce good content, but also have a very advanced understanding of content marketing and have formed their own methodology.

I see the strategy for the second half of content marketing in them. Next, I hope to explain to you Dingxiang Doctor’s content marketing strategy based on my limited understanding, and I hope it will be inspiring to you.

Dingxiang Doctor, pioneering health marketing

Among the content media on the market, there are only a handful of them that have brand and marketing awareness. Most of them just consider themselves as media. As long as they have good enough content and traffic, brands will come to them for advertising.

When most people were thinking about how to sell traffic, Dingxiang Doctor had already started doing marketing. Marketing means co-creating content with brands and helping them solve problems. It is not just about exposure or traffic diversion, but about using your own potential to solve brand problems.

Next, let’s talk about how Dingxiang Doctor does content marketing. It can be divided into one direction and three roles. I hope that content media can directly apply it to themselves after reading it. One direction is health marketing, and the three roles are media role, marketing role, and brand role. Let’s interpret them one by one.

Health Marketing

The "health marketing" I see most often is in some spam traffic accounts. There are a bunch of horrible pictures at the beginning, and at the end you are given a magic tool to solve the problem with one click. It is no different from the small advertisements on telephone poles. This routine basically contains counterfeit and shoddy products, but some people still believe in it.

Trustworthy and authoritative health marketing has become an urgent need, such as healthy food, healthy home, healthy personal care, sports and fitness, health products, etc. Women have begun to check the chemical composition when using cosmetics, and people have begun to pay attention to the quality of fatty acids, ketones, and even carbohydrates in their daily diet.

The contemporary new middle class pursues quality, quality and style, but the most fundamental thing is the pursuit of health, which has become a basic need. The essence of healthy consumption is a sense of security. Behind Dingxiang Doctor is a team of thousands of doctors. Every piece of content and every product is scientifically reviewed by professional doctors to ensure that the output content is trustworthy.

The cooperative brand screening mechanism for health marketing is divided into three colors: red, yellow and green. Red represents that the product is harmful to health, or is ineffective and has exaggerated publicity. Such products will be directly put on the blacklist and will never cooperate again. Yellow means that there is controversy over the efficacy of the product at the academic level, and the cooperation or dispute resolution will be put on hold. Only green represents that the product is healthy and is a lifestyle advocated by doctors, and health marketing cooperation can be carried out.

Media Role

Let’s briefly talk about the role of the media. Most successful content media have very clear media roles. The media role is the positioning for users. You must be very clear about the positioning of your content, in which sub-category, what value you provide to users, and why users should pay attention to you.

For example, Huxiu and 36Kr provide in-depth Internet content, Wu Xiaobo provides financial knowledge, Xin Shixiang provides late-night comfort for urban youth, and Yang Buhuai provides interpretation of marketing methods and strategies.

For example, Dingxiang Doctor’s content positioning: a group of doctors with warmth, knowledge and attitude, and the lifestyle they advocate. Provide health knowledge and healthy consumption to ordinary users in the field of big health.

Marketing Role

Almost all content media have not considered the role of marketing. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, everyone is selling traffic, creating good content, and then directly putting up patch ads when they have traffic. This is still the traditional media delivery method, not content marketing.

The marketing role is targeted at the brand, what value can it provide to the brand, and what problems can it solve for the brand.

This is the core issue that every content media needs to think about next.

DingXiang Doctor’s media persona is that of a trustworthy health brand, as it is backed by thousands of doctors. Therefore, the marketing role is to be able to provide health endorsement for the brand and shorten the trust distance between the brand and users. Dingxiang Doctor has become an important path for brands to build health and safety.

The authoritative endorsement plus the user base of 35 million is of great value to the brand, even irreplaceable value.

Brand Role

The brand role is the role of Party A's brand. When we do content marketing, what role does Party A's brand play? Is it the exposure at the end of the article, the hard advertising recommendation in the next article, or the deep co-creation based on relevance?

Content marketing should sort out brand roles based on marketing roles, what kind of content to provide for the brand, and what is the brand’s role in the content. Dingxiang Doctor provides health marketing for brands and shortens the trust distance between brands and users. What kind of content should be produced to achieve this goal? It cannot just rely on user trust and let users buy directly.

For example, the cooperation with Dyson aims to create an image for Dyson as a provider of healthy home solutions, enhance the mite removal, sterilization, purification and other performance of Dyson products, and through popular science articles, interesting videos, UGC content, PGC content and surveys and other forms of integrated marketing, with the authoritative endorsement of Dingxiang Doctor, create a healthy brand image for Dyson in all aspects.

For example, together with Feimi tampons, they jointly created category education on Zhihu. One day after Dingxiang Doctor’s answer went online, the Zhihu index of tampons increased to 370 times the usual level. Zhihu Daily actively included it, and Feimi’s brand awareness increased by 1123.29% month-on-month in 30 days, setting a historical high.

To sum up, it is necessary to sort out the direction of content marketing, output media roles to users, output marketing roles to brands, and then co-create marketing content with brands and output it to users. If you can understand these points, your content marketing will not be bad.

Creating Anti-Fragile Brand Content

Based on the above analysis, let’s sort out what standard content should be produced.

The biggest gain I got this year was from reading the book "Antifragile". The antifragile theory is applied to content marketing, which means that the more advertisements you take, the faster your fans will grow and the greater your traffic will be. This sounds unrealistic, but I think there is a chance.

It is based on two foundations: one is to turn advertising into content, and the other is that advertising has unique value to fans. If you can meet these two basic requirements, you will most likely be able to achieve anti-fragile content marketing.

How to achieve it is based on the above strategies and role divisions. For example, Dingxiang Doctor does health marketing and recommends the public to use mite removers, water flossers, tampons, etc. These are the lifestyles advocated by doctors.

The promotion and popularization of these health products have also improved the national health level to a certain extent. It is a good thing both in public and in private, and both brands and users benefit. This is anti-fragile content marketing.

If content marketing is done like this, will users still care whether it is an advertisement, whether they are paid, or whether they will be exploited? As a user of Dingxiang, I hope they will accept more advertisements and recommend more health products, because they have a strict review mechanism behind them and will not recommend bad products. To a certain extent, Dingxiang Doctor is leading China's health consumption, which is a good thing.

We must admit that the current environment is indeed not good. It is difficult to make money from brands, marketing budgets have begun to be cut, and the value of selling traffic is not high. Whether it is the media or KOL, they all need to think about how to break through and transform, and do real content marketing rather than placing patch advertisements.

I suggest that everyone sort out their strategies to determine what content value they can provide to users and what the role of the media is.

What value does it have to the brand, what brand problems can it solve, and what is the marketing role?

What is the role of the brand in content marketing, and what kind of marketing content can be co-created?

Finally, there needs to be a content marketing positioning. Is it health marketing, value marketing, brand setting or direct sales? Sort it out clearly and know what to do and what not to do.

Author: Yang Buhuai

Source: Yang Buhuai (ID: yangbuhuai01)