The new world of marketing. Voorwoord Robert Rose ‘Contentbijbel’

It was a spectacular sunset, but it felt slightly strange to be watching it at 9:30PM at night. I was standing on the patio, overlooking the North Sea in Bloemendaal aan Zee, and “The Night Of Content Marketing” event for which I was the keynote speaker was just coming to a close. As the last bit of sun began to disappear over the western horizon, my friend, and one of the hosts for the evening, Cor Hospes came out and said to me “it’s like a story book isn’t it?”

It certainly was – and is. The fact is that, in all my world travels, I am privileged to see a lot of interesting things, and I meet many interesting people trying to make their way toward “the new world” of marketing. But I’ve gotten to know the Dutch market a little better than some others – namely because I’ve gotten to quite a bit more time in The Netherlands than in other places. And, I can tell you that innovative Dutch marketers are leading the new approach of Content Marketing in Europe. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised given Dutch history for exploration, and innovation. And certainly, I mean other than the fact that he gave me a ride back to my hotel that night from the beach, and that he has written a fantastic book, it’s one of the reasons I was honored to write this forward.

No More Doubt: Content Will Affect Your Business

There is simply no doubt that content – and the exponentially increasing quantities that every business produces – will affect the business. As a recent Google white paper called Return On Information concluded, the volume of content and data is growing so fast that it may soon reach the “too much” stage where at actually “interferes with productivity rather than contribute to it”.

In his 1954 book The Practice Of Management the world renown Peter Drucker concludes that:

“The business enterprise has two and only two functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results. All the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

Somewhere, as we’ve been trying to find our way to the horizon of digital marketing, we have lost our way here. This idea, that the “function of marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business” seems to have been lost. In so many cases, Marketing is simply a service function within the business. Its sole job to produce ever more voluminous amounts of content that describes the value of our brand, or our product or service so that sales can sell more efficiently, customer support can service more effectively and all manner of customer interfaces are simply cleverly designed.

Cor Is Your Navigator To The Future

This book that Cor has written helps to provide a rallying call for marketing to reclaim its ability to create value. Marketing can be the unique, distinguishing function of the business – but only if its goal is to create the value that continually evolves customers from aware, to interested, to engaged to sold and then onward to loyal and evangelistic. Content and experiences – and the business’ ability to create, manage and promote them – will be the single most important key to this evolution.

Cor is capturing in a book what I’ve seen in practice in so many ways in the Dutch marketplace. He comes at the challenge of marketing from the perspective of a journalist. With two decades of experience of telling stories, from radio to print to even theater and ultimately journalism – Cor has seen the future of marketing. And that future is in how companies will succeed by telling better stories.

Like any good navigator, he’ll bring you the context of history – and let you discover where you find yourself on the journey. And then, in the second half of the book – he’ll provide you the practical and clear-eyed route to developing your own approach to content marketing. And, he brings it all home in the entertaining, informative and engaging way that only he can.

A New World Awaits

It’s simple: content in marketing isn’t new. Content Marketing is. Content can be managed as a strategic asset that it has (or can) become for enterprises – or it can be an expensive byproduct that ultimately weighs down a company as it tries to navigate the broader disruptions taking place.

As you look to the horizon of marketing, consider this book a very good friend; walking up to you and telling you “it’s like a storybook isn’t it?”

Yes it is – and Cor and this book are your guide. Bon Voyage.

Return On Information: Improving your ROI with Google Enterprise Search http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/gsa-google-returnoninformation.pdf

En o ja, mijn boek is nog altijd met een fikse introductiekortinghierte bestellen.