Content strategy for audience-first brands
In the new attention economy, brands are turning away from traditional marketing channels and investing in “content,” that elusive word that refers to anything that’s media-based and not purely labelled as advertising. But too many of them treat content as another checklist item, resulting in missed opportunities to use it strategically to drive brand and business growth.
The problem is that content is most often seen as a driver of sales. It’s used to attract, nurture and convert customers, and much less often as a way to communicate a brand’s identity, its values, its uniqueness in a way that helps form deep emotional connections with audiences.
Content can help a brand gain recognition, demonstrate cultural relevance, and build relationships with its audience — whether the audience is buying its products or not. With content, brands can inspire, educate, provoke and create meaning in a way that allows it to weave itself into people’s lives. When brands shift their perception of people from consumers to audiences, they can truly tap into the power of content.
(A brief aside: the word ‘community’ is increasingly used when discussing the relationship between brands and their followers. In many cases, what they describe is actually an audience. A community is a group of people that is formed around a shared purpose, and…
