19February

"Companies, organizations, and brands need to start thinking and acting more like a publisher!" is a common mantra in content marketing land. The subheading of the so far only Belgian book on content marketing is "From marketer to publisher. But what does it mean and, above all, why is it important? When content marketers argue for more "thinking like a publisher," they are at least implicitly referring to a number of things.

Written by Michel Libens

Customer centric

 First of all, we need to highlight the importance of "customer centric" thinking in marketing and communications. Good publishers were and are champions of audience thinking, persona use, and segmentation. A good publishing product (think of the punkiest magazines of the past or the best online content platforms of today or the most successful vloggers on YouTube, etc.) is a great example of a well delineated target audience with recognizable aspirations, fears, sighs, problems, interests, etc. Usually also written out in "benchmark personas" or "reader personae”.

Since a publisher must live primarily on the content consumption of its 'readers,' this is the obvious first and most important starting point. This is also completely different from the product thinking that is still common with many companies where the product is always at the center of communication.

In truth, this is an outright plea to replace the Unique Selling Proposition (USP that always starts from the product) with a Unique Buying Proposition (UBP that always starts from the needs of the potential customer, needs that are first answered with information, i.e. with content).

Owned media

 In addition, the expression "thinking like a publisher" also refers to the still increasing importance of "owned media". Instead of full reliance on other media, content marketers are using the "think like a publisher" mantra to advocate more investment in "owned media". Media that is literally owned by the brand and the organization. Smart marketers can thus communicate with their target audiences in environments that they themselves control (at least in part) and where they have an impact on the "umfeld" (environment) in which their message is packaged.

If target audiences and segments are well defined, brands can copy or even take over the classic role of publishers. Meeting the information needs of a (sub)target group then becomes a primary goal with thought leadership, trusted partner position, etc. (on the way to sales) as a reward. 

This is a model that certainly has a future. In fact, our expectations are that some brands will buy classic media in the coming years.