Web Business Marketing Blog

Joe Pulizzi is the driving force behind Junta42, the web community on everything about content marketing and custom publishing. Over the past 7 months, Junta42 has produced a continuous stream of relevant content, now adding up to a knowledge base of close to a 1000 articles. With the recent addition of the top content marketing blog list and the consequent increase of activity, it’s high time for a discussion with Joe about the emerging discipline of content marketing, and how it is supported by Junta42. This article is a digest based on an e-mail discussion.

Content marketing as a sector

Content marketing is the 8th largest media sector at between 30 and 55 billion USD. According to Publications Management and Custom Publishing Council, 27% of marketing budgets go toward custom content. Still marketers are largely unaware of how much they are spending and it’s only this year that content marketing will have its first conference. Lots of companies are active, but they are all doing it in a vacuum, without an integrated programme.

What is content marketing, and how does it relate to business marketing?

Content marketing is the idea that businesses can and should be their own publishers. Technology, as well as significant changes in buyer behavior, has given businesses the opportunity to communicate directly with their customers without going through the media as distributors. Content marketing isn’t just any content though … it is the creation of valuable content that meets the informational needs of the target audience. By delivering meaningful content on a continuous basis, businesses are positioned as experts and solution providers for their customers.

As such, content marketing & custom publishing are close to business marketing. B2B marketers have always been in direct contact with their customers, but often needed to support the sales funnel with technical marketing, i.e. application notes, white papers, case studies, training seminars, … They used their own mailing lists, sales force and trade media for dissemination. What’s changed now is that business can set up their own online media channel integrating these content streams.

What we may also see is that professional media will evolve, and provide more opportunities for custom branded communications with targeted groups. And industry or trade associations may enter the custom publishing scene, organising collaborative marketing programmes to achieve critical mass.

Not all B2B marketing is content marketing - some specialised, high value-added businesses need only a direct approach to their customers and will never publish marketing collateral for a broader audience. And not all content marketing is B2B -  for example some activities cater to specialised hobbies or interests of consumers

Junta42’s offer

The Junta42 team trying to create a place where marketing professionals of all shapes and sizes can learn and interact with other marketers who believe that content marketing should be a significant part of their business model. Junta42 was developed out of a frustration of the lack of educational sites around the creation of great business content. There have always been sites out there to help distribute and market, but simply not enough about bringing the content equation together.

The biggest compliment from marketers received by Junta42 is that they don’t feel alone any more. Many business marketers are active deeply in their niche. They face similar problems as their peers, but tend to have mainly contacts with professionals in their industry, not other marketers. These marketing professionals are now saying, “Yes, we’ve been focusing on content marketing, we just didn’t know what to call it.”

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that businesses can’t market the way they used to. Buyers today are smarter and technology is better. In order to engage customers, we need to give them information to help make them smarter - to help make their lives better. Businesses can’t just sell products anymore, they must provide solid, consistent, educational information. This applies in particular with complex technological products, where the customer needs to be educated first about the potential value of the solution, and subsequently about the use of the technology. 

Junta42 is not ‘digg for content marketing’

Junta42 does not have a ‘front page’, nor does it have a hidden algorithm of making articles appear on the front page or not. It’s more a ‘benevolent dictatorship’ of the Junta42 team, which filters all submissions, and makes sure the content remains high quality and on-topic. And with time, Junta42 aims to be more than a mere social bookmarking site. As the initiative gains traction, it’ll gradually add more features.

For the social/business bookmarking side, a comparison with knowledge management tools such as diigo or blinklist would be more appropriate. Technically, the bookmarking element of Junta42 could be implemented as a vertical group in diigo or blinklist, but content marketing professionals deserve their own branded initiative, that can serve as a platform for building the content marketing community.

Why should you as a content marketer or custom publisher engage in Junta42?

When the Junta42 site was launched, the plan was to work to create a community around content marketing - how to create it, distribute it, market it, and measure it, and it’s all beginning to come together. Junta42 is the only online location that can bring these marketers and customer publishers together. Over the next 12 to 18 months Junta42 will be launching premium educational initiatives for both groups, which will continue to grow the business. Other than that, the initiative will continue to have fun trying new things to solve the challenges of today’s marketing professional.

With the launch of Junta42 Match this spring, marketing professionals will have the only place where they can find the perfect match for their business content needs. As marketers see more need for branded content initiatives, they will also need to recruit expert publishers to help them. Junta42 Match can take a 2 week to 2 month supplier search process and complete it for the marketer in 15 minutes. For custom publishers, new business is the most challenging part of the business model. Junta42 Match will be the perfect place for custom publishers to find companies that fit within their own business criteria, and should enhance and replace some of their current marketing efforts. Junta42 Match will be the revenue component to make the Junta42 brand sustainable in the long run (free to marketing professionals, a paid service for publishers who wish to be a part of the system).

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We certainly wish Joe good luck with his innovative project, and we’re glad to be a associated to it. As reader of web business marketing blog, please support Junta42. Why not get an account, hitch some bookmarks or hitch a couple of content marketing blogs. It certainly makes the business and content marketing scene a better place with more fun.

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