What are you most excited about in the digital marketing space at the moment?
I’m excited about the opportunities presented by the growth of connected devices and the Internet of Things. The ability to capture enhanced, personalised data across devices will allow brands to create more relevant, more contextual content and deliver it at the right time across all kinds of formats and devices.
The launch of the Apple Watch is just another step towards this and another mechanism for learning more about the consumer in order to deliver the most appropriate content.
I’m really excited to see how this develops and which brands will take the initiative and make the investments required in this space.
What’s your favourite example of innovative digital marketing?
Some of the most innovative digital marketing is built in to the product and doesn’t look much like marketing. Brands who build ongoing services in to their products can leverage this to incentivise consumers to stay with them, maximise up-sell opportunities and eradicate the need to market in a traditional way to their existing customers. Nike and Apple are doing this well through Nike+ applications & iCloud and iTunes services. As Stefan Olander, VP of Digital Sport at Nike puts it - “Once you have a direct relationship with a consumer, you don’t need to advertise to them”.
Where do you go for great content?
I look for high quality content with a great UI...Medium, Quartz, TED, Wired, the Guardian app and my Kindle to name a few.
What’s next for digital content?
A return to first principles of content. Consumers will become fed up of clickbait, listicles and poor quality content. Consumers will demand and will probably be prepared to pay for high quality content created by top notch journalists that is easy to access, reliable and adds value. Premium publishers and new companies such as The Information are pioneering this space and I think it is a trend that is here to stay. Brands should be cautious about chasing clicks, shares & views by copying Buzzfeed-type tactics at the expense of high quality, useful content that builds brand value.
What defines good content?
Memorable content that adds sustaining value. Good content is content that is enjoyed and remembered beyond the next click/article/video. From a brand’s perspective though, content must do at least one of two things to be ‘good’. It must either enhance brand value or drive conversions.
What is the biggest myth about content marketing?
That it’s all about the content… Distribution is pretty important too!
How are you amplifying and maximising your content?
We’ve just launched a new content exchange platform that enables brands to maximise the scale and reach of their content by syndicating the content natively on to a network of publisher’s sites. We’ve found that by leveraging the authority and audience of these publishers, as well as using Outbrain to amplify the content further, we’ve been able to achieve impressively high engagement and click-through rates.
How do you work with Outbrain and what has your experience been?
We use Outbrain and other channels to drive relevant audiences to our video content. Using our own proprietary video player and technology we have been able to drive conversions and to optimise traffic for views, conversions and engagement. Outbrain has consistently performed well and stood out as one of the strongest channels for driving engaged audiences.
Ben Grabiner is a Strategist at Adjust Your Set. You can find him on Twitter @bengrabiner.
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