GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 38 - July 2017

The content marketing myth Image by Georgejmclittle/Shutterstock f you talk about something, it’s always good to have a definition for it. Here’s the Content Marketing Insti- tute’s definition of content marketing: “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-de- fined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. ” They also say, “Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.” So, what’s supposed to happen is, you write up some really good content, people consume it and they fall in love with the brand, ultimately becoming loyal lifetime customers. While that paints a beautiful picture, it’s also unrealistic – a fairy tale of sorts, especially for those of us in the iGaming space. The ideal content marketing flow Imagine we’re doing the perfect content marketing campaign for an iGaming affiliate. For the content marketing to work, you will need to answer questions, help people and entertain them. The plan is to get this content out there and gain natural traction from third-party publications and social media. It’s not quite viral marketing, but it’s in that neighborhood. An important concept in content marketing is reducing fric- tion. If your content is really good, there’s minimal friction and many, many people will see it. The less attractive your content, the less likely it is to be liked or shared, and therefore, you get more friction. The planning Every great content marketing campaign needs a great hook to get people interested. This is where you can brainstorm, come up with a fantastic concept that people love, and you’ve got a foundation for an excellent campaign. The resources Of course, this is where you need a content marketing agency! These people will brainstormwith you and come up new angles on your big ideas. They will also do the infographics for you, and, through their big network of contacts, go out and spread your message around. You’ll be glad to know a good agency is only $1,000 a day. The execution You spend $4,000 on a brilliant infographic, another $8,000 for eight days’ work on your campaign with the agency, and now you’re in the outreach phase. Between you and the agency, you guys will have a big spread of contacts to whom you can put out this excellent content marketing material. Social media Of course, every good brand should have a vibrant and large fan base, and content marketing needs this fan base to get your message out there. On top of that, other “mavens” within social media will probably also take your content and distribute it among their followership. The objective People engage with your content; they end up on your website; you’ll typically do data capture and get an e-mail from them so you can e-mail them again; and, ultimately, through your customer relationship management efforts, they will convert and you make your money. The results Obviously, we have social media monitoring tools, and because the content will ultimately be hosted on your site, you’ll be able to get page view data that will show you which of your content marketing pieces are working. You will also have tracking to see the connection between the content marketing and conversions. If you’ve done everything by the book, you’ll be rich! It all sounds really good, doesn’t it? There’s something really uplifting about a nice agency-style pitch on content market- ing. It all sounds so straightforward. The big idea, the perfect agency support, the networks, the uptake and, ultimately, the huge revenue streams. I Content marketing is (usually) next to useless if you’re an iGaming affiliate . . . It is generally the wrong framework for iGaming affiliates. But the foundation of content marketing — i.e., “I need information to help me” — is unbelievably relevant to doing well with SEO and conversions . w w w . g p w a t i m e s . o r g 23