What content marketers can learn from TV

Marketers think people have short attention spans - TV shows us they don't

It’s often said that we are living in a new “Golden Age of TV”.  There literally seems to be too much great television to watch... Whether you like gritty crime stories, or historical dramas or comedy series, there are inventive, compelling, “binge-worthy” TV shows coming out all the time – and not just on “television,” but now on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Today, TV is driving the cultural conversation more than movies or music or any other art forms: people identify by what types of shows they watch and they create a sense of community by comparing notes on social media about which latest developments happened during their latest session of binge watching. With all of the critical, cultural and financial attention going to TV shows today, companies like Netflix and Amazon and other online companies like Yahoo! are looking to create more of their own original content – and there are big lessons here for any businesses that are trying to attract more of an audience with content marketing.

Here are a few key lessons that content marketers can learn from “the Golden Age of TV:”

Long-form storytelling matters more than ever

In the “old days,” marketers used to assume that people had short attention spans, and that they wouldn’t sit through anything longer than a 30-second TV commercial. But the rise of binge-worthy TV shows has demonstrated that the opposite is true. People have a long attention span as long as the content is relevant and compelling. People will sit through dozens of hours of their favorite TV shows as long as the storytelling is strong.

People are more interested than ever before in long-form stories that really speak to them about their lives or that help them solve problems. On a smaller scale, you can see this trend at work in blog writing, where longer blog posts are often most likely to be shared, and in podcasting, where podcast fans will happily listen to hours of conversation from their favorite podcast hosts. The lesson? Don’t be afraid to deliver longer-form content as a big part of your content marketing strategy. If you have something important to say, and you trust your audience to stay with you and “get” what you’re trying to deliver, long-form content marketing can be more effective than short blurbs.

Loyalty matters more than eyeballs

In the “old days” of marketing, the priority was to try to get your ad in front of as wide of an audience as possible, in the hopes that some tiny percentage of those eyeballs would happen to act on the message. It was inefficient, but in the age of mass media marketing, it worked – if your TV ad was seen by a million viewers, perhaps 1,000 of them would go out and buy your product. But with content marketing, the strategy has changed. Not all eyeballs are equally valuable to your company. Instead of trying to blast out your message in front of millions of (mostly indifferent) people, the Internet is all about niches. Content marketing gives you a chance to narrowly target your content at a small-but-profitable niche audience, rather than wasting your money on reaching lots of people who aren’t interested in what you do.

Instead of interrupting people, make something that people want to share

TV advertising used to be based on interrupting people – taking regular breaks during delivery of the content for “a word from our sponsor.” Back before the Internet existed, people didn’t have any other option for entertainment – they had to wait for the end of the TV commercial break. But with the rise of technologies like TiVo and second-screen devices, people no longer have to sit through commercials.

This old “interruption-based” model of advertising is dead – people, if they want to, can be constantly engaged and entertained and stimulated at all times; it’s increasingly possible to ignore advertising and limit unwanted interruptions while consuming content online. As a result, since the “interruption” model of marketing is irrelevant today, it’s more important than ever to create content that people actively want to spend time with – not because they’re forced to, but because they choose to seek it out. Today’s best TV shows build an audience based on word-of-mouth and creating community – people want to watch the same shows that their friends are talking about on Facebook, and this sense of sharing and socializing around TV is a natural fit for today’s content marketing world.

How can today’s TV shows help you create shareable content marketing? Well, sometimes TV shows can directly give us inspiration for great content marketing ideas. For one example, check out this article I wrote for Entrepreneur on “6 Things ‘Better Call Saul’ Can Teach You About Finding Customers,” which was inspired by the hit TV show spinoff from “Breaking Bad.” The article was shared over 1,000 times on Facebook because people could easily relate to the themes and strategies based on the show.

The same TV shows that people are talking about around the water cooler at work or on social media can also inspire you to create compelling marketing content that intersects with the same ideas and events depicted on TV. Your content marketing can “piggyback” on the success of the most talked-about TV shows – as long as you look for ways to make the conversation relevant to your business and your expertise. As the old saying goes: Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction! And sometimes fictional TV shows can help make your real-life business stronger.

Thanks to Gregg Schwartz for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Gregg Schwartz is the vice president of sales and marketing at Strategic Sales & Marketing, a B2B lead-generation firm based in Connecticut. You can follow them on Twitter or connect  with Gregg on LinkedIn.

Image credit: LG전자