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CHAPTER 8

Strategies for Marketing Content

InTRoduCTIonContent has two markets the marketplace of ideas and the economic mar-ket. Whether it reaches a few million people or just a few depends on money, energy, strategy, and just plain luck. When an organizations success depends on the sale and distribution of content, the importance of marketing cannot be overstated it is the very lifeblood of the organization a smart, effective marketing effort is essential. As a result, almost every executive in a media com-pany needs to understand something about it. Managers in the content areas

2010 Joan Van Tassel and Lisa Poe-Howfield. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-240-81020-1.00008-7

I just believe that the cost of marketing is going to increase and the cost of delivery is going to decrease as the Net gets stronger and mass media gets weaker.

Joichi Ito

The objective of this chapter is to provide you with information about: Marketing management and managing marketing

The marketing plan, marketing communications, and SOSTAC

Marketing strategies Content as Product Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Branding, positioning, viral marketing, and other methods for mar-

keters to build bridges between content and consumers Defining the content market

The global market for content Audience/consumer segmentation

Universal marketing appeals

CHAPTER objECTIvEs

ConTEnTs

Chapter Objectives .. 203Introduction .............203Marketing Manage-ment and Managing Marketing ................206A Day in the Life of Dorothy Hui .............209Marketing Strategies ................211Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): Reaching across the Wire and the Ether ..........211Defining the Market .....................216Universal Marketing Appeals: The New, the First, the Only, and the New and Improved .................219Summary .................220Whats Ahead ..........220Case Study 8.1 The Road to Marketing a Newscast .................220Case Study 8.2 3, 2, 1 Launch of a New Web Site ..221References ...............221

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need to know the market for material what people want, what they buy, what will attract audiences that advertisers will buy. Facilities managers are involved in the planning, budget, and resource allocation of content product initiatives. Financial managers have to structure the deals.

In a sense, the process begins as part of deciding whether to create or acquire a content product. Will it sell? Who will buy it? How much will it cost, and how much will the consumer pay? The answers to these questions are at the heart of making decisions about content. Once the content is in hand a video, a song, a newsletter then the work to get it to consumers begins. An enterprise accomplishes this goal through marketing, defined by the American Market-ing Association as: The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for cus-tomers, clients, partners, and society at large.1

Marketing, like all communication activities, is undergoing enormous change, driven by rapid technological innovation. According to Smith and Taylor:

Marketing and the marketing communications mix are changing. New insights, new tools, new opportunities and new challenges are emerg-ing as the 21st century progresses. The worlds 6 l/4 billion consumers and almost 400 million business customers are becoming increasingly accessible. And so too are your customers ready targets for your competitors. New pressures also emerge as managers operated in delayered organizations, stripped of supporting services and yet free from the quagmire of tier upon tier of management. This means more managers need to understand marketing, which itself is changing.2

The emergence of the Internet as a platform that enables person-to-person com-munication between people who may never meet face-to-face is fundamen-tally changing communication. It empowers people to gather and exchange information on a scale that creates a qualitatively different environment for communicators. When the mass media was the primary source of consumer information, advertisers could control a great deal of what they could learn, although interpersonal social networks also exerted influence through conver-sations about peoples experience with products and services.

However, now people can have online conversations with hundreds, thousands, and even millions of others. User feedback, comments, and ratings on many sites make it impossible for advertisers to control the conversation. At best, they can influence it. Figures 8-1 and 8-2 show how peer-to-peer connections alter the way information reaches consumers (and publics and audiences), compared to the process defined by traditional mass media communication.

Marketing has always been complex, requiring knowledge of the industry, the market, and the consumer. Yet mere knowledge is not always enough.

205Introduction

Figure 8-1 Communication process of mass communication

Receivers(EncoderInterpreterDecoder )

ReceiversInterpersonal

Network

(EncoderInterpreterDecoder)

IdenticalMessages

Channel:Transmitter/Cable/

Satellite and TV

Delayed,InferentialFeedback

Schramms Model of Broadcast Communication

Source:Mass MediaOrganization

(EncoderInterpreterDecoder)

Figure 8-2 Communication process of mass media and Internet media

IdenticalMessages

Source:Mass MediaOrganization

(EncoderInterpreterDecoder)

Channel:Transmitter/Cable/

Satellite and TV

Delayed,InferentialFeedback

Feedforward Model of Viral Media Communication

Feedforward

Receivers(EncoderInterpreterDecoder)

ReceiversInterpersonal

Network

(EncoderInterpreterDecoder)

Receivers OnlineSocial Network

(EncoderInterpreterDecoder)

CHAPTER 8: strategies for Marketing Content206

Marketing is as much art as science, calling for innovation and creativity and never so much as today, with new opportunities and challenges.

MARkETIng MAnAgEMEnT And MAnAgIng MARkETIngMarketing managers plan, implement, and oversee an organizations market-ing activities, bringing to bear all of the available resources, time, money, and creativity, to the effort. In any industry, marketing is central to organizational success in fulfilling its business plan. In the content industries, there is a wide range of marketing needs and activities, making it difficult to generalize across the spectrum of organizations. It follows that marketing managers in different organizations exert varying levels of influence. Small content producers may hire freelance marketers; large companies can have managers who address nar-row vertical marketing channels, such as healthcare titles, or broad horizontal channels, or all titles across multiple big-box retailers (stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Costco, and so forth). Alternatively, a brand manager may be in charge of a line of products with the same brand, marketed via all available channels.

At the most basic level, marketing is matchmaking. It brings customers to the organization buyers, consumers, viewers, audiences, advertisers. The job of marketing managers is to introduce the right prospects to the right products at the right time, or, as it is often expressed, to affect the level, timing, and com-position of customer demand to meet organizational objectives.

In most content companies, marketing is not just the purview of the marketing department. According to McKenna, Marketing today is not a function; it is a way of doing business. Marketing is not a new ad campaign or this months promotion. Marketing has to be all-pervasive, part of everyones job descrip-tion, from the receptionists to the board of directors. Its job is neither to fool the customer nor to falsify the companys image. It is to integrate the customer into the design of the product and to design a systematic process for interac-tion that will create substance in the relationship.3

The marketing of content products is similar to those efforts in any industry. It follows well-known processes and uses familiar media platforms to buy radio ads, outdoor boards, public transportation posters and billboards, Internet banners, and television and radio ads. Specific segments of the media industries may mar-ket differently because of traditional practices, because they are too new to have traditions, or because the market of the sector, company, or product has changed. Some sectors, including motion pictures, television, and radio learn a lot about tar-get audiences, but little about individual consumers. Others, such as newspapers, magazines, and especially Internet marketers, know a great deal about individu-als. In many sectors, such as motion pictures, television, radio, newspapers, and Internet sites, the medium itself offers a way to market all the content the outlet

Marketing Management and Managing Marketing 207

owner distributes. For example, most television networks set aside a substantial portion of their commercial air time to in-house promotional efforts.

As indicated in the previous chapter, in media businesses, marketing is inter-twined with the initial decision making about producing or acquiring content and continues to be a focus of discussion throughout the process. Even the finance department is involved in setting budgets for content acquisition, production, and marketing and product pricing. Virtually every manager in a media company understands something about marketing and its importance to the health of the organization.