Ten years ago, content marketing was a new thing. Companies knew they needed it—even if only because their marketing execs said so—but many had no clear idea of why or how.
One decade on, and content marketing has evolved into custom content publishing and brand journalism. Brands are becoming media publishers; luxury retailers are calling print their secret weapon; and business empires are being built on the strength of magazines.
What a difference 10 years make.
One industry insider who’s ridden the wave is Thom Forbes, writing in Media Post.
Far from seeing print as dead, (yes, you can roll your eyes now) he sees the medium as an integral part of “an ever-expanding grab bag” of custom content.
Another content marketing pro who understands the promise of print is Mike Winkleman, interviewed by Forbes for his article and asked if he feels that printed custom publishing is dead. His answer?
“Absolutely not,” said Winkleman, who according to Forbes,“senses a resurgent demand for long-form, paper-bound editorial even as ‘snackable’ snippets are increasingly in vogue…”
The challenge for brands is to “appropriately repurpose the brand story over as many channels as make strategic and financial sense,” according to Forbes.
Given the variety of new business models for print magazines being deployed and seeing success, the call for making strategic and financial sense…well…makes a lot of sense.
Publishers are now free, if they choose, to develop a new model that works across platforms, keeping their readers and their preferences for engagement in mind. Brands are also free, if they choose, to become media publishers. Companies now have more control of how and where they appear in print than ever before.
The truth is that people still prefer to read in print. Building a print publishing model around that idea seems pretty darn sensible to us.
January 24, 2017, 1:31 pm