E-marketing Strategy: The Rise and Meaning of Content Marketing

This is content marketing. It sells products through natural discovery, not interruption, of an audience—the audience is more receptive, and therefore, it is more effective.

There are many reasons why content marketing has exploded in popularity over the last few years. The first, and most bitter, argument I can make is that traditional advertisements are horrible. They're too loud and too flashy. They detract from the user experience of our chosen medium and distract us from the intended recipients of our attention. As a result, we, as a culture, have invented and sought out ways to block, skip and silence advertisers. Some of the most popular services and technologies of the day have become so by providing information or entertainment while helping people avoid advertisers: Netflix, TiVo, Zite, Roku, NPR, HBO, Twitter, etc.

Content marketing is also gaining steam due to the meteoric rise of content-sharing tools and services. You know their names: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Vimeo, YouTube, Pinterest, Foursquare, Tumblr, WordPress, Meebo and Bloopt cannot exist without content. (Yes. I made up Bloopt.) Luckily, the rise of content-creation devices has kept pace: iPhone, iPad, Android, GoPro, Flip, Quik Pod, Cybershot, etc. It is now as easy to create content as it is to share it with—literally—the world.

And the final, and least cynical, argument I can make for the rise of content marketing is that people want to believe in something again. We know we're being manipulated, and we're rejecting it. We've come through a deeply cynical and profit-driven era of robotic customer service and disappointing corporate-customer interactions. We are beaten and battle-weary. We're looking—in a sea of faceless box stores with weary hourly employees reciting scripts handed down by overpaid executives—for companies, organizations, and real people we can meet, trust to try to do the right thing, and hold accountable. Content marketing levels the playing field and rips down ivory towers. It opens channels for honest two-way communication between company and customer, and it is, therefore, a welcome reprieve from our raging against untouchable CEOs.