What is Content Marketing?

Today I was reading this article on global media behemoth, Mashable. It's title is 8 second marketing: How to craft content strategies for Generation Z. The piece was interesting enough, with the central thesis claiming that "in an age where multitasking meets fear-of-missing-out (FOMO), the average attention span is down to eight seconds." But while I can appreciate what Andy Mizerek is trying to say with that flashy statement, I'm afraid I have to humbly disagree. 

I would clarify his claim by saying that marketers today have 8 seconds (or often times, less) to capture attention. Once you've got a consumer on the hook, they are more than willing to delve as deeply as they need to uncover the truth. You see, along with the advent of dual-screening and multi-tasking, the digital age has brought about an information revolution. People no longer trust what they hear. With Google just a voice-activation away, every claim is instantly verifiable. In my experience, people are more than willing to put some time and effort into gathering information about something they care about, you just have to get them to care. Honestly, why do you think Serial was so popular?

The concept I'm discussing is referred to as "content marketing". Content marketing (according to Forbes) is the "mercantile version on thought leadership." In other words, marketers are now offering information instead of catchy slogans in an attempt to demonstrate their intellectual value to consumers. With the world moving as fast as it is, everyone wants to be on the cutting edge. For corporations, that means becoming thought leaders in their fields and acting as educators for their consumers. It's not enough for a brand to have a mascot and consistent messaging, people expect more from companies today. 

Let's say you are comparison shopping for a vacuum cleaner. Instead of just going to the store and picking out something in your budget in the color you want, you are more likely to do some research. Consumer reports, Amazon product reviews and customer testimonials all play a huge role in the buyers journey. So, as a buyer, you visit Company A's website. There's not much to see there other than some sexy product shots of their machine and the slogan "if you spill something today, choose company A!". Having not learned much, you begin to research Company B. What do you find? A blog post detailing what separates Company B apart from Company A, and a detailed analysis of why their vacuum technology is so special. Who are you more likely to purchase from? My money is on Company B. Company B took the time to explain how and why their product was the best, and that information is likely valuable to you. That's good content marketing. 

All of that research had to take some time, right? At least, it definitely took longer than 8 seconds.

Now, to be fair to Andy Mizerek at Mashable, he was describing B2C marketing and I primarily work in B2B. It has also been years since I've had to get into the buying mind of someone from Generation Z, however, I still think that marketers have way more than 8 seconds to work with - we may have only 8 seconds to get them into our funnel, but once they are there if we've got the content to back it up we can keep them for days. The most important thing is to grab attention quickly and wholly. Wether it's a catchy email subject line, a beautifully curated Pinterest board or a particularly compelling call-to-action on a site, you've got 8 seconds (or less) to get Gen Z to click, but once they're in you should take your time and aim for quality over rushed work. People are hungry for content, so give it to them.