Content marketing, like virtually everything else in media, is constantly evolving and innovating. The discipline changes with each new iteration of marketing thought. Sometimes, effective content-marketing programs come and go as corporate objectives change. Other times, it’s all about KPIs, and they, too, change with each new generation of audience-engagement technology. And there are new communications channels, such as video podcasts, that emerge and change a marketer’s approach entirely.
Then there’s artificial Intelligence, and that, more than anything, has changed content creation and revenue generation alike.
We took at look at the world of content marketing two years ago, when we sat down with Mike Winkleman, founder of Leverage Media, a 24-year-old content-marketing shop based in Westchester County, New York. Mike is both prominent in content marketing circles and a veteran of the business. We thought it was a good idea to revisit the world of content marketing, and no one is better than Mike to provide an assessment. Here’s an edited transcript of our Q&A.
Fox Tales: In 2023, we asked you to identify top trends in content marketing. How have those trends shifted in three years? My sense is that the trends we saw three years ago have continued and intensified.
Mike Winkleman.
Mike Winkleman: Content marketing is more diffuse than ever, found in more channels and more formats than previously. Podcasts and videos (and video podcasts) remain hot. There are, I believe, more content producers working to compete for audience attention than before, though it seems to me that more content is being produced in house than it used to be, except when it’s produced by behemoth publishers like the New York Times or People, or by small niche companies like Leverage Media. Some of the companies in the middle have broadened their offerings so that content is just one of many marketing solutions they provide, with much of their work fueled by their own market research.
And it’s that research, coupled with an increasingly intense focus on metrics that is, I believe, driving the biggest change in content marketing. Where content marketers used to trust their experience and, frankly, their guts, to figure out what would grab attention, they’re now turning to SEO, AEO, GEO—and AI for guidance and are often more concerned with generating clicks than truly clicking with their audiences. Some of this appears to be tied to what studies have shown to be a divide between the interests of sales and marketing—with sales interested in content only so far as it drives an initial connection—and marketing, which is interested in building relationships. Speaking of which: I’ve seen evidence of some companies trading in-person relationship building for broader-based content distribution. Events, for example, are back again, apparently stronger than ever. Webinars, too.
Fox Tales: You mentioned podcasts were hot in 2022-2023. I’ve also heard they’re hard to monetize at scale. What’s hot now, and how are podcasts doing?
Winkleman: Podcasts remain hot and, in many ways, have become a calling card. Table stakes. If you don’t have one, who are you? At the same time, there’s a realization that while podcasts have increased geometrically, audience time to listen to them has not. So there’s been a push to differentiate them, and the key way to do that appears to be adding a video component, making them video podcasts. As a content-marketing tool, however, podcast monetization is not a direct concern. Companies are not looking to make money with their content-marketing driven podcasts—they’re looking to get attention, generate leads, and develop relationships.
Fox Tales: Give us an example of a transformative Leverage Media client/project. Tell us about the objectives, strategy and execution, and results.
Winkleman: What I generally try to get our clients to commit to is a long-term, multi-pronged, multi-channel strategic content-marketing program. I’m not always able to move clients past short-term, one-project-at-a-time thinking, but one of our recent clients, a major financial-services firm, had great success with a longer-term project. The genesis for this was a content hub on its website that provided content not directly tied, for example, to selling annuities, but instead it offered an audience of financial planners solid advice on how to run their practices better, with the expectation that familiarization with the company would lead eventually to annuity sales.
We generated new content every week, promoted through a constant stream of emails and social media announcements. We spun podcasts off the content by interviewing sources we’d used for the articles and then promoting the podcasts and posting them on the website. And, when we’d accumulated enough content on the website, we spun it off into a glossy quarterly print magazine, which we sent out to 25,000 financial planners nationwide. The magazine won two awards from the Content Marketing Institute. But more importantly, it became a critical tool for the company’s sales team and generated a raft of positive reactions from recipients, at least one of whom returned the sales team’s calls for the first time ever, signing a major contract.
Fox Tales: Is there a general decline in eagerness for marketers to use content-based solutions? I just read on LinkedIn this morning someone saying content hubs on marketers’ websites are becoming less of a focus.
Winkleman: I think that’s true. The content hub I discussed earlier was discontinued when a new CMO came in with a different definition of what constituted thought leadership, and a more reactive (rather than proactive) approach to content generation. Hubs take a lot of work, and constant effort. Many companies are not willing to commit to this sort of approach long term. In addition, it’s hard to get the audience to come to the hub on a continuing basis without constant additional promotion—social media, emails, etc.—and companies, looking for more of a quick hit, are less and less likely to make that sort of long-term commitment.
Fox Tales: Tell us how AI is affecting your business and the businesses of marketers.
Winkleman: I think this takes many forms. What we’re seeing is more use of AI to assess audience interest, in order to determine not only what to cover through content, but also how to cover it. Our writers, and I assume other content creators, are increasingly using AI as a research tool and occasionally (though I discourage this!) as a way to generate early drafts. Recently we’ve also used it to create illustrations, particularly charts and graphics for content we’ve developed. At this stage in AI’s evolution, it’s proving a useful, collaborative tool. I worry, of course, that we’ll soon hit a tipping point, where content development and distribution is turned over to AI, with little human intervention. We’re not there yet. We have time to figure out how to maintain a balance.