Free White Paper: Content Marketing in the Mobile, Local Social Age

Content Marketing is the new black. Along with mobile marketing, it’s the media category  getting the most attention and investment these days. One question is how it’s colliding with the likewise opportune area of local media & advertising.

This is the topic of BIA/Kelsey’s latest sponsored (read: free to you) research. BIA/Kelsey continues to engage market leaders in its coverage areas — in this case Search Influence — in order to collaborate on research reports.

The paper’s thesis and coverage can be seen in the executive summary below. And you can download the full report here. Stay tuned for more discussions around this topic, including a published Q&A with Search Influence.

Executive Summary

Over the past couple of years, one term has been used within media and advertising worlds arguably more than any other: Content Marketing.

This is defined as content that is created and positioned to promote a given business in ways that engage readers or viewers more organically than traditional paid advertising. It is not a new concept — sharing roots with the publishing world’s longstanding “advertorial.”

But it’s taking new forms, shaped by larger technological and cultural trends. Those include social sharing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Vine; and the proliferation of social graphs, and better hardware (i.e. smartphone cameras).

As advertising traditionally lags behind technological and behavioral trends, all of the above is causing advertisers to think about positioning their brands within and alongside this viral content (much like this summer’s ice bucket challenge phenomenon). This has led to content marketing’s current phase.

Much of the activity in content marketing also involves more traditional formats like text. This includes Facebook status, tweets and blog posts. The latter’s long form advantages can characterize a person, place or business with greater dimension.

But content marketing doesn’t come without challenges and drawbacks. Creating content that is genuine, organic and of high quality is difficult to do — especially at the low budgetary ranges that are characteristic of local businesses.

These barriers represent one of the field’s biggest opportunities. Third parties that achieve economies of scale and execute content marketing for advertisers will fill a sizeable gap. The key is quality, scalable and cost efficient content production.

In this report, we’ll examine the state of the union of content marketing: What’s driving it? Where do the biggest opportunities lie? What are the do’s and don’ts? What can be lost by ignoring it? And what can be gained from doing it right?