Digital Marketer vs Digital Content Marketer
While Digital Marketing is big business right now, a new trend in the type of roles has emerged over the last year or so. According to research conducted by Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter Group, ‘75% of companies increased their content marketing budget in 2016, and 43% increased the staffing levels of their content marketing departments’ (2016). Therefore, this trend can be attributed to companies increasing their content marketing budgets and staffing levels. However, while this research explains the rise in the number of vacancies to be filled, it does not answer the question of why companies have increased budgets and staffing for content marketing. Perhaps looking at the similarities and differences between Digital and Digital Content Marketers will shed some light on the question.
What does a Digital Marketer do?
Anyone working within a Digital Marketing department will be responsible for different areas of the process of promoting products and services across multiple social media platforms. The roles within such a department can range from executive to analytics but all team members will have a shared goal; to promote to increase sales or build the company brand and reputation. In short, digital marketing is about promotion.
What does a Digital Content Marketer do?
Digital content marketing focuses on the creation of campaign content. This means researching the companies target audiences to find out about their interests and questions to create copy which is tailored to meet their needs and expectations. This could include memorable slogans – Amdas like to think ‘Grown up Recruitment’ is memorable – and punchy catchphrases; overarching campaign narratives and content delivered in a consistent style and voice. In short, content marketing is about creation.
How are these different and what is the change?
More and more, companies want an overarching narrative that will permeate through an entire campaign. The sector, from retail to property or even politics, will dictate the style and voice of any campaign but these elements will need to be cohesive and consistent throughout channels.
However, while there is a correlation between the increases in budgets and staffing and the number of content marketing roles out there, there is no suggestion that content marketing is replacing digital marketing. In real terms, companies are looking to increase the success of their digital marketing departments by supporting them with content marketers. This could because in a world where 1440 WordPress blogs are published, and 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute and the vast majority of google searches pulling up major established sites, simply signing up to social media is no longer enough to keep a wider audience engaged; reaching them is one thing but making them see the benefit of a company’s products or services is another.
Karen’s tips for Digital Content Marketers:
· Collect as much data as possible
· It’s not simple, but doing that hard work up front will save a lot of trouble
· Clarify the business objectives
· Powerful content is artfully tailored to the audience’s needs and interests
· A successful strategy pivots upon thorough research
· Site analytics are a must to gage how users interact with your site Bibliography: B2B Content Marketing, accessed 24/03/2017, Content Marketing Institute: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016_B2B_Report_Final.pdf