“The most precious and most sought after publicity you can generate.”

A communications conversation about the what, why and when of content marketing

We have all experienced the feeling: we know the buzzword, but we aren’t too sure what it covers. Take content marketing: the meaning is generally clear, but how can it be used as a market differentiator, in B2B, or on a limited budget?

To get the facts behind the buzzword, asking an expert – such as business development consultant Gregor Küpper – is always the best approach.

Interview by Florence Ranson. Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

How do you define content marketing? What are we missing?

Content marketing can be defined as broadly or narrowly as you like. The narrow approach is that of selling or buying studies and reports related to one’s activities and promoting them. I prefer to look at the broad approach. Let me explain. Do you have a website, do you post on LinkedIn or Facebook for your business? Then you are facing the same challenges as 99 per cent of your colleagues: how to keep your audience interested and stimulate return visits.

Content marketing as I see it is about finding new and interesting information for your target groups and presenting it in such a way that it is relevant to them. This way they see you as a trusted source of information. Which in turn is key to becoming recognised as the reference in your sector.

But we all focus on renewing the contents of our website regularly. Why or how can content marketing make a difference?

We are under constant pressure to publish new information. But what if we have nothing new to say, no new product to announce or no new event to present? This is a real challenge. Bringing in external content will help us position our organisations. 

Gregor Küpper

Gregor Küpper is general manager of His Way, a consultancy and business development service for start-ups, entrepreneurs and re-starts. He is also head of partnerships and membership benefits at Press Club Brussels Europe. Say hi to Gregor on Linkedin here.

Florence Ranson

Florence Ranson is founder of REDComms. Previously, she was director of communications at FoodDrinkEurope. She took this role in April 2014, after 12 years as head of communications at the European Banking Federation. She is responsible among other things for media relations and CSR. Before that, Florence was secretary general of the European Advertising Tripartite, the European organisation representing advertisers, communications agencies and media.