How Content Marketers Are The Underdogs Of Digital Media

David Ogilvy better known as the father of advertising, was once quoted, “in the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create”.

This one statement puts a dot in the current regime of digital marketing. It is quite noticeable that the emergence of several media platforms in last 3-5 years have pushed the advertising and marketing strategies at front and every now and then, it is not only the volume of the content but the unique branding proposition that content carries with the quality is what makes it a happen for a platform.

The internet penetration has witnessed a tremendous rise within a short span of few years. The IAMAI-IMRB report claimed internet users in the country (India) are expected to fall in the range of 450-465 million by June this year, up from 432 million in December last year. And it’s just a beginning for the revolution in the digital space because there are around 750 million potential users which are yet to be discovered for the internet space or say they are yet to be reached.

Out of all this, all that counts is how you execute to bring the proper connection and engagement with the audience, and stories never get missed out in mid of all the distraction that social media space has to offer these days. It is where the hidden strategist, content marketer comes into the limelight to make sure targeted segments never left apart from what they are ‘wanting’ to see.

Long story short, we appreciate the content that we get to see, be it on Instagram as a story or on YouTube as a vine and of course, on television, if that still counts, and then there are innumerable portals that we keep switching all day-all night. But what we miss uncovering the fact is how it has reached to us!

It is a marketer who weaves a network of breadcrumbs on the selected medium so as to lead target audiences to the offering. For instance, an informative blog on Medium may ultimately provide a convincing call to action to buy the entire book.

During February this year, 4Play, the adventure sports channel’s creative team started conceptualising a short film, the basic premise was to create a Downhill biking video which incorporates an Indian vibe.

The marketer brings to the platter insight about the audience, their sensibilities and how they are managed to be engrossed with the piece. Marketers heavily rely on surface-level research, tracking different statistics and building the presence along with brand identity, all in all having an end goal to never fall apart from strategic moves.

It was then obvious that the Indian audiences with little background in outdoor sports lacked the understanding of nuances to be able to appreciate a typical downhill biking video.

So figuring out the way to captivate the audience, they zeroed into making a video that primarily narrated the story of a widely related vacation destination – Manali, through a catchy Bollywood number, that Indian masses can easily relate to.

A downhill bike along with a song, were used to weave different elements into a coherent storyline. As for the sensitivity of the medium, since they intended to put it out through a distraction-filled social media interaction platform as Facebook, they kept the length of the video very short. So as to cater to the dramatically low attention span of the viewer. As well as took care that the hook came in within 5 seconds of the video starting.

The wide relatability of the piece has lead to the incredible organic engagement that the video is still receiving. Basically, as marketers, they have given each of their audience a piece of the pie to own in their hearts and minds.

They even interacted with key influencers that might like the piece and become its champions. This became possible through the appreciation of the director, cast, musicians from the team of the movie Laal Rang, from which the background song has been taken. And speaking to thousands of visitors at the IMF mountain film festival in Delhi as well.

It is a marketer who ensures that a content piece travels through a selected distribution network that engages the kind of audience that is selected. It is also the marketer who helps bridge the creative aspect with the commercial, aligning monetization with creative production. It is a necessity to carve the path for recurring revenue so that investing never goes out of focus while making content manufacturing sustainable in the long term.

Putting everything else on the rest, without content marketers, the best stories may never see the light of the day.