This interview, conducted and written by TMG Managing Editor Corey Murray, marks the first in the Content to Change series, a collection of interviews with the custom content industry’s best and brightest.
Rosen and several members of her organization are fresh from the CCC’s annual meeting in Charleston, S.C., where new research showed that 81 percent of chief marketing officers said they planned to incorporate custom media into their content strategies, up from 67 percent in 2006.
Lori Rosen, Executive Director of the Custom Content Council
Who exactly is the Custom Content Council?
It’s everybody from independent custom media companies to divisions at larger publishing houses to newspaper and digital content creators.
Your organization recently changed its name from the Custom Publishing Council to the Custom Content Council. Why “Content?”
In the last 10 years, the custom media industry saw a lot of growth and a lot of change. All of a sudden, something happened and content became the “it” word in marketing. Our members all felt that they had been there for a long time. Now, with a new focus, they might be able to capitalize on that a little more.
How so?
It’s one thing to understand content, but you have to leverage it properly. That’s what our members try to help their clients do.
In an age where people consume information in so many ways—print, digital, Facebook, Twitter, mobile, et cetera—what questions are publishers asking when forming a content strategy?
It’s do we do mobile, do we do digital, do we do blogs, or traditional magazines.
But clearly not every piece of content is right for every client, right? How do publishers find the right content to meet the needs of their specific audiences? What challenges do they face?
I think clients should try to look at it backward, beginning with the end result. Who are you trying to reach, what are your goals for your content strategies? For new business, is it customer retention? Is it upselling? Is it just awareness, education—what are those goals? Then, let’s figure out where those people are. Is it still better to hit them at home in their mailboxes via print magazines, or on their mobile devices? There is no one answer. I think it’s a combination of everything. Every custom media program today that launches is integrated. It’s not just print and it’s not just digital.
But print still has a role to play?
Absolutely. It’s not even a question.
How do we know that—really?
We released some new research at our conference done in partnership with Roper that gives us some firsthand ideas about what clients are looking for in their content strategies. I think people inherently know that some information is best put in a magazine because people can read it at their leisure. And I see anecdotally that that is still the primary vehicle that people use. (See chart.)
Talk to me about the Web and other content vehicles. How can the Web complement what you are doing in print?
The content you get online is definitely complementary and sometimes works as more of a teaser to lead people back to the print publication.
How do you adjust your strategy when preparing content for the Web to ensure that it’s something your readers will come back to?
Sometimes you have to add in a promotion or a sweepstakes to get people coming back. You also have to tie what you’re doing on the Web to other vehicles, such as facebook or Twitter, for example.
So social media is another way to bring people in?
Definitely.
Your recent conference featured content experts and marketing leaders representing several corporate heavyweights. How did you get so many bigwigs together and talking about custom content in the same room?
Four years ago, when we invited chief marketing officers and others, many of them weren’t all that anxious to come and share. Two things changed: A) I think they really want to share their strategies—not trade secrets so much, but what they are doing, because they want to be seen as innovators; B) I think they truly like their custom strategies; that’s why they want to share them.
So, it’s a good thing to expand the conversation?
I think it’s smart. The more you share, the more you are going to get back.
In your mind, the best content does what?
It adds another dimension to the relationship with the brand. So, it doesn’t just sell it; it gives you an emotional connection, which is probably the most important thing you can ask for.
