Content: The Marketing Currency in the Digital World

On a daily basis, I am constantly inundated with lots of information through my inbox and I am a victim of someone that signs up to a number of newsletters and promotional materials. However with that in mind, I am less inclined to give out my email since I end up deleting most of the content I receive.

I’m sure I am among millions of people that have this problem and because of this, it is ever so important in this world that we live in, that businesses provide relevant and valuable content to their customers.

This brings me to what was discussed at PR Newswire 2013 Best Practices Forum, held in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. “Relevant” and “valuable” were echoed a numerous of times at these events.

If you’re not familiar with the Best Practices Forum, it is an invitation-only event for business communicators to gather and discuss latest best practices on topics related to online influence, content PR & Marketing, multimedia engagement and the media landscape that are relevant to audiences in Asia. The latest topic was on “Content: The Marketing Currency in the Digital World” where we had experienced speakers share their valuable insights with us.

Speakers included our Global CEO Ninan Chacko and Global Director of Emerging Media Michael Pranikoff. Not only that, but we were pleased to also have Peter Bakker, Commercial Director Asia at King Content and Zaheer Nooruddin, VP Digital, WE Studio D Asia-Pacific Waggener Edstrom Worldwide.

The guests were an eclectic mix of senior marketers and PR from different industries attending the seminars in anticipation to hear our speakers give their perspective on this topic.

Going back to the words “relevant” and “valuable”, both Michael and Ninan brought them up at the event and told us there should be “value exchange” between brand and customer, meaning that the brand and customer must have something of value to exchange with each other. From the content marketing perspective, the audience’s currency (value) is their “contact details”, and the brand’s currency (value) is their “content”. So it is important that the brand delivers relevant and useful content that has value, in order for the customers to trust the brand and willingly identify themselves and engage in further interactions.

Not only is it important to provide valuable content to reach customers, but in these three seminars, we looked at how the media landscape has changed, why businesses need a content strategy and how content is the driving force to a business’s objectives.

At the panel discussion in Singapore, our guest speakers named a few brands that have produced good content marketing. Ninan named Red Bull as a fantastic, prolific publisher of content and has done very well in terms of highlighting the narrative and reputation that the brand offers. He also mentioned Oreo as a company that takes advantage of real-time marketing based on consumers’ feedback on summer trends. Some other examples discussed included Lego and from the B2B world AMEX, IBM and PWC.

What’s more, we discussed the importance of integrated marketing with an emphasis on mobile and multimedia, and tackled a topic that is always on the mind of businesses: measurement.

Watch the video below on some key areas that the speakers shared at the events

To conclude, it is nothing new when I say content has always been about producing high value, engaging and relevant content, however if we’re not changing how and where you are delivering your messages today and not have a content strategy in place, then you are going to create problems for your audiences to be able to view and discover your content.

To learn more about what was discussed and shared at the Best Practices Forum 2013, we’ve created an Insight Report on Content: The Marketing Currency in the Digital World – Collective Insights from PR Newswire 2013 Best Practices Forum in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

To download, click here.

Joanna Yip is the Marketing Communications Manager for PR Newswire.