Jun 11, 20164 min read

This Week in Content Marketing: Content Marketing as a Profit Center

PNR: This Old Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose can be found on both iTunes and Stitcher.

In this episode of This Old Marketing, Robert and I discuss a number of acquisitions that occurred this week, including UBM’s historic purchase of CMI. Next, we highlight several trends from Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report and weigh in with our own predictions. We’re not surprised that Yahoo’s fortunes are tanking under Marissa Mayer’s leadership; being everything to everyone isn’t a viable strategy. Finally, we’re excited to report that snack-food giant Mondelez is joining Pepsi and Red Bull in adopting a media approach to content marketing. Rants and raves include the radical NoMQL (no gated content) movement and Monocle Magazine’s wildly successful online radio station. This week’s This Old Marketing example: Christophorus – the Porsche magazine.

This week’s show

(Recorded live June 6, 2016; Length: 1:02:41)

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1. Content marketing in the news

Content Marketing Institute acquired by UBM (7:08): The Content Marketing Institute has been acquired by UBM, the No. 1 B2B events organizer in the U.S. and Asia, with a large business globally in many verticals. This decision will help CMI take its vision of advancing the approach of content marketing to more marketers in the U.S. and around the world. I’m excited about it because both UBM and CMI share the same passion for the content marketing industry and its growing community. Robert points out that our job is to amplify all of the amazing work that’s being done around the world to advance this practice. The UBM acquisition will enhance our ability to do that.
The 15 most important slides in Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report (13:52): The Washington Post has isolated the most important trends contained in Mary Meeker’s highly influential annual trends report. Among the most significant developments: The massive growth of digital advertising, privacy and security, e-commerce, and disruptive internet start-ups. I see an explosive move of advertising dollars from print to mobile. Robert believes there will be a huge opportunity for content on mobile, as marketers figure out that mobile advertising isn’t very efficient. We agree that marketers still have a long way to go to understand how to leverage the potential of content marketing.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Write Content That Engages Mobile Readers

Yahoo’s false prophet – How Marissa Mayer failed to turn the company around (28:20): Marissa Mayer has sat behind the wheel at Yahoo for nearly four years. She has had the luxury of running one of the world’s most recognized internet brands, with a surging digital ad market, a cooperative board, a truckload of cash, and 1 billion monthly visitors. And still she has failed to turn things around at the beleaguered company, reports Variety magazine. I believe Yahoo’s ills are caused by trying to be everything to everyone, rather than trying to develop a strategic focus on its core audience. Robert shares his “conspiracy theory” about Yahoo and Mayer.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Content Marketing: Forget About the 5%

Mondelez makes moves to look more like a media company (35:54): Mondelez International, the snack-food giant behind brands like Triscuit crackers, Toblerone chocolate, and Nutter Butter cookies, is getting into the media business in hopes of reaching consumers who are increasingly avoiding advertising, reports The Wall Street Journal. Mondelez will focus on forming media partnerships to acquire, develop, and distribute content that will promote its “power brands” and become a profit center within the business. Robert and I applaud this move. Other companies can follow its lead by diverting even a small percentage of their ad budgets to content marketing.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Why Brands Need to Acquire a Media Company [Here’s How]

2. Sponsor (42:58)

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3. Rants and raves (44:25)

Robert’s rave: This week, Robert gives two thumbs up to an article about the radical NoMQL movement in content marketing (no marketing qualified leads). It tells the story of Drift, a digital agency that ungated all of its special reports and made them available for free. For this strategy to work, your company’s products and services must be truly delightful — so that customers will exercise free will to buy, review, and recommend them.
Joe’s rave: I love this Digiday article, which tells the story of Monocle magazine’s launch of its 24-hour digital radio station in 2011. The magazine found an entirely new audience via the radio program, and reached another 750,000 listeners via commercial agreements with radio stations ABC Australia and CBC Canada, which needed programming to fill air time. It’s a great example of how diversification can pay off.

4. This Old Marketing example of the week (55:02)

Christophorus: The first car that carried the Porsche name was built in 1948 in Gmünd, Austria. Only a few cars were sold because the brand was not well-known to consumers. To solve this problem, the company launched the German-language Porsche Christophorus magazine in 1952. It was named after the German patron saint of drivers. An English edition debuted in 1956. The print version of Christophorus currently contains 100 pages and appears five times a year in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It now has over 500,000 subscribers worldwide. The subjects covered in this premium-quality magazine vary from Porsche cars, races, tourist trips, letters from readers, fashion tips, and much more. Since summer 2013, all articles from the current issue are published on the Porsche AG website every two weeks. Earlier issues can also be found in an online archive. Christophorus appears to be the oldest customer magazine in automotive history. This is a wonderful example of This Old Marketing.