How agencies can convince brands to up their content marketing game

Convincing clients to invest in content marketing is not always an easy pitch. While many clients (brands) can’t see the long-term benefit of content marketing, others are apprehensive of the time and investment the medium needs to get it right.

BuzzInContent.com had a conversation with renowned agencies to find how one can convince clients to get started with content marketing as part of their core strategies.

Karthik Hariharan

Karthik Hariharan, Business Head, FoxyMoron, South, said the biggest challenge is scepticism and perception in understanding the value that content marketing can bring to the table.

For example, for a client only in offline retail business and no e-commerce, they are sceptical of the value being added as they believe it has only “notional value” and doesn’t impact their business directly.

“It is often perceived as ‘good to have’ than ‘need to have’ and half the battle is won when that changes. The best approach is to showcase to any client the opportunity or the lost opportunity when it comes to content marketing. That is to demonstrate value that will be added to their business. I am yet to meet a client who doesn’t see value when it is business oriented,” he said.

Dharika Merchant

While most brands approach agencies to work on content marketing strategies, Dharika Merchant, COO, Alchemy Group and Word, said they face a setback in convincing them to try out unconventional ideas because today’s audience is highly sensitive and one has to tread those waters carefully.

“Clients are sometimes sceptical about trying strategies that are too risky with their target audience. At the same time, while brands are taking a safe approach, they are also looking to make campaigns with ‘virality potential’. While creating a viral video can’t be assured, what we can do is work with them to bring out quality videos that reach, engage and convert, which requires increased budgets. Budget constraints are always a hindrance. The one thing we have learnt is that now more than ever, brands need experimental and storytelling campaigns that actually resonate with today’s audience,” she added.

Neena Dasgupta

According to Neena Dasgupta, CEO and Director, Zirca Digital Solutions, the primary challenge is moving the attention from layers of KPI to a customer-focused conversation plan.

The second challenge, she added, is the willingness to correlate data points that are beyond an obvious KPI and lead to sustained engagement models. Actually more towards commercially viable (from consumer standpoint) conversation models. And thirdly, the challenge of changing the narrative the market-facing custodians created about actually having a tried-and-tested formula. This is uniquely regressive as a thought for the mind and the responses are not homogenous like the body parts are and, therefore, a formula (like a box of fortified powder) won’t work.

She said, “We need to understand together as an industry that the consumers are more than numbers and their responses are a combination of triggers, beliefs and access in relation to mindset defined by personality type. And the first step to do that is marry offline data points to online data points to actually have a story.”

Srikant Subramanian

Srikant Subramanian, Director of Business Development of Mirum India, said that this solely depends on the client in terms of whether the decision maker would be convinced by media, creative, or strategy — but at the end of the day it has to be related to what business outcome the client would be interested in, and how much exponential value could be generated by what we are suggesting.

Karthik Nagarajan

Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker India, pointed out that the biggest challenge for the industry at this point is showcasing ROI vs paid media spends.

“It is also important to look at content as something that will solve business problems and not just campaign challenges,” he added.

Here’s how you can best persuade your clients

“Trusting that the content is about the audience first, the context second and the brand third,” said Subramanian.

Without a clear understanding of that, the content will never deliver value and the marketer will never have enough trust to continue to spend and invest in content.

This may come as a surprise, but Merchant said that convincing brands to put customers first is still a challenge many marketers face while creating content.

“It is necessary to identify opportunities, stay topical and jump onto the bandwagon while maintaining your persona. The audience wants to flock to a brand for the unique content and experience they provide, and not necessarily the product that they’re selling. Brands are beginning to understand this and are now looking at things from a fresh perspective,” she said.

For instance, the audience does not follow Amul’s social media pages to know more about their butter and their dairy products, but more importantly for their witty take on all topical and relevant issues with their brand mascot.

So once marketers realise that they get the benefit of directly engaging with the customer at the core, without additional costs of research and survey, they are automatically driven towards pursuing content marketing for their brand, she added.

Dasgupta advised, “They need to trust their own instincts as a consumer and accept that with miles of content in our palms, we need to ensure we don’t lose trust or attention of our prospect. Focus on trusting yourselves and then let data, statistics, technology and creativity bring the narratives alive and the crowd engaged. The initial investment for planning must be considered as a business cost that will guarantee success, more than what is seen today and beyond KPI of platforms and into the KPIs of business.”

People consume content before they possibly even consume a product or service and also after they’ve made a purchase. So content isn’t a mere sales journey that ends but a cyclical, interconnected one. Just as understanding the navigation is critical, equally important is what to say and where to say. That is defined by the purpose of the content or role of the content piece in the overall consumer journey.

And that is why Hariharan emphasised on the ‘purpose’ of content in the medium, channel, platform as a representation of the brand in the consumer journey.

Has pandemic mitigated the task for agencies?

If anything, most clients have understood the importance of investing in a good content strategy and online presence in the last six months, said Hariharan.

He added, “The challenge has been to help them navigate quickly and effectively in the sudden spurt of consumer presence, interest and conversion in the content space. Covid-19 enforced behavioural changes in people and brands alike, but this has opened up a whole new world of convenience, comfort and ease to many. The impact is not short term as marketers have understood the strength of content marketing and I do already see the existing challenges diminishing but with the new spurt there will be newer challenges that emerge.”

The last six to seven months for clients who have remained active has been about showcasing the need of the content, Subramanian said. He thinks that marketers (with budgets) were forced to look at content in this pandemic.

“Especially seeded content is something that we did not see marketers want to really spend monies on, but had to do it, since other means of reach were not available. This will continue even post Covid-19 in 2022 as the next 12 months will continue to remain similar to what happened in 2020,” he added.

In a fortunate turn of events, the Covid-19 pandemic has actually been a blessing in disguise for marketers around the globe as Merchant has been seeing brands opening up to the idea of content marketing like never before.

“They have started acknowledging the benefits of content marketing for building out their brand, increasing business, generating lead growth and improved conversion rates because of which they are now willing to spend more budgets on content strategy,” she said.

Being optimistic that the road ahead will be much smoother with greater penetration of content marketing among the brands leading to increased spends at this front, she added, “A lot of factors will come into play in a post Covid-19 world with brands working towards creating the perfect blend of intriguing content and the right set of marketing tools for a successful campaign. The change in perception is already evident. Brands are now looking at increased spends on video content, targeting their audience at the right spot and using it to keep them engaged.”

Even Nagarajan agreed that clients today understand the space way more than they did at the beginning of the year. However, he added that it is now up to the industry to continue to deliver on these promises and that increase in spends will happen over time.

But, according to Dasgupta, these months has been about largely delivering performance and any response to the last many months owing to Covid must be considered and treated as an aberration.

“Various macroeconomic factors are at play here and therefore this question probably won’t have any response that is a permanent behaviour. Many companies are going into oblivion and trust me, the business challenges are more important than whether content is being considered seriously,” she added.

This time may have given many marketers the space to think about what they would like their conversation looks to be and she believes many have used content amplification as a means and not really content strategy.