Content strategy for audience-first brands

In the new attention economy, brands are turning away from traditional marketing channels and investing in “content,” that elusive word that refers to anything that’s media-based and not purely labelled as advertising. But too many of them treat content as another checklist item, resulting in missed opportunities to use it strategically to drive brand and business growth.

The problem is that content is most often seen as a driver of sales. It’s used to attract, nurture and convert customers, and much less often as a way to communicate a brand’s identity, its values, its uniqueness in a way that helps form deep emotional connections with audiences. 

Content can help a brand gain recognition, demonstrate cultural relevance, and build relationships with its audience—whether the audience is buying its products or not. With content, brands can inspire, educate, provoke and create meaning in a way that allows it to weave itself into people’s lives. When brands shift their perception of people from consumers to audiences, they can truly tap into the power of content.

When brands shift their perception of people from consumers to audiences, they can truly tap into the power of content.

(A brief aside: the word ‘community’ is increasingly used when discussing the relationship between brands and their followers. In many cases, what they describe is actually an audience. A community is a group of people that is formed around a shared purpose, and where people interact between each other. An audience refers to the group of people who consume content. Some consumer groups may evolve into fandoms, which I won’t be discussing here. The confusion between those terms might lead brands to make misguided decisions about how to foster engagement, and what sets of behaviours they can expect from people.)

Brands as publishers

To understand how brands may strike the balance between content, aspiration and cultural relevance, we can look to magazines. For hundreds of years, they’ve offered us inspiration, discovery, beauty, controversy and conversation through the lens of expertise and a sharp point of view.

Here’s what New Yorker staff writer Nathan Heller had to say upon perusing the Grolier Club’s historical collection of American publications earlier this year:

“It’s notable that what made magazines appealing in 1720 is the same thing that made them appealing in 1920 and in 2020: a blend of iconoclasm and authority, novelty and continuity, marketability and creativity, social engagement and personal voice.” 

It’s perhaps not so surprising that in the age of digital everything, print magazines still matter. In fact independent magazines—those that appeal to niche, loyal audiences by relying on a strong voice and a well-defined point of view—appear to be thriving. That’s because a large enough number of readers are ready to invest in trusted, authoritative and smartly curated content they believe can help them make sense of the world.

Brands can learn from this mindset when thinking about what content, curation and publishing can do from them. It can inspire, inform and help your audience, thus providing genuine value. It can help position a product within a context (a lifestyle, a culture) when presented within a curated selection of products or stories. It can attach a brand to a larger story, infusing it with meaning and leaving a bigger imprint on people’s minds. And it can speak to your expertise as a tastemaker and elevate your brand to the status of culture-maker. Need I say more?

Content as product

Brands have long used traditional media channels as a way to strengthen business operations. Mailchimp now owns Courier magazine; Goop started as a newsletter; SSENSE delivers really smart criticism on art, fashion and culture on its homepage. But the idea of content has been evolving as of late.

Emily Weiss founded the beauty company Glossier after running the popular blog Into the Gloss for several years. When she described her products as “tactile content” to a BuzzFeed reporter, I initially winced at what sounded like startup jargon. But Weiss was onto something. By viewing products as content, she understood that Glossier’s customers were consuming an idea of beauty that could express itself in any medium. Indeed, Glossier’s customer experience constantly veers between physical and digital, to the point where it can be hard to discern which is the brand’s primary product—the makeup the customer receives at home, in a packaging that was carefully designed with Instagram in mind, or the picture she takes of it, and which might be reposted on the company’s own account as free advertising?

Madhappy may be known as a clothing brand, but the company describes itself as a “lifestyle label” that offers “products and experiences that create optimism.” Its publication, The Local Optimist, serves as a repository for stories and resources around mental health and well-being. In this case, clothing is merely a conduit to foster conversations around mental health. Every interaction with the audience, from pop-ups to Clubhouse chats and Instagram stories, is created with this goal in mind.

By viewing products as content, Emily Weiss understood that Glossier’s customers were consuming an idea of beauty that could express itself in any medium.

A strong brand is a brand that has figured out what stories it wants to tell, and which conversations it wants to nurture. What form those stories and conversations could take almost becomes secondary. When stripped from their materiality, brands become fluid, able to shape-shift into limitless formats depending on the context and the goal: a collaboration, a film, a furniture collection, whatever. The brand’s narrative is what acts as a both a common thread and a North Star that guides the brand in deciding what its next incarnation might be. 

If you think this might be taking things too far, consider this: when the pandemic struck and the world shut down, thousands of entrepreneurs had to pivot away from their core offering. Those  who understood the power of the brand in elevating businesses beyond products, were able to create new products and services while staying true to their essence.

The fashion brand Tibi and its founder Amy Smilovic documented this process very publicly on their respective Instagram accounts. In posts after posts, Smilovic described how the company went through a soul-searching process so that it could scale back its operations without losing itself. For Tibi, going back to the basics meant doubling down on its relationship with customers. Tibi started hosting weekly styling lessons on Instagram live, featuring Smilovic and Styling Director Dione Davis. On her own account, Smilovic delivered business classes for would-be fashion entrepreneurs, giving candid been-there-done-that advice on anything from branding to business operations. Tibi essentially became an education company, providing quality content at no charge while showing genuine concern for its audience and demonstrating radical transparency at a time when so many people were desperately looking for guidance.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Tibi found a way to monetize this content, or at least turn its educational offering into a source of revenue (when I messaged Smilovic to suggest they turn the styling advice into a book, she replied they were working on it.) I think this would be a smart move. Diversifying revenue streams can certainly help businesses build resilience to future shocks. 

But there’s more to it. Entrepreneurs in the fashion industry are coming to terms with the fact that a business built on the idea of producing more and more stuff is antithetic to preserving the planet. The most progressive ones are torn between the necessity to keep the business profitable, and the knowledge that they’re engaging into damaging practices by doing so. And fashion is just one of many industries that is increasingly having to contend with soon-to-become obsolete business models that simply do not stand in an environmentally and socially responsible world.

I’m envisioning a future where business growth isn’t necessarily tied to increased volume of goods, but increased value delivered to the customer. And physical products—or dare I say it, content—may just play a part in delivering that value. (In fact I think business growth will be tied to increased value delivered not just to the customer but also the customer’s community, and all of the company’s stakeholders, and the planet, but I’m trying to keep things concise, as you can see.)

Narrative as strategy

In the media industry, roles are now evolving to accommodate this shift. Things like newsletters and podcasts are now considered as products, and they’re managed by product owners, whose job is to navigate the delicate balance between audience engagement, editorial quality and business growth. This represents a tremendous departure from the historical, previously unbridgeable divide between sales and editorial.

There should be a complete alignment between your strategic priorities, company culture and external communications. What makes this alignment possible is the brand narrative.

Non-media companies could follow a similar path and flatten their organizational structure by breaking down silos between product and marketing. Product managers/owners might handle content like any other product, always keeping in mind the role that each of them plays in serving the brand.

I’m aware we’re delving a bit into speculative fiction here. What seems both more urgent and feasible to me is that brands should absolutely view content not as an afterthought, but as an organizational mandate that runs across business functions, unites teams internally, and connects with audiences externally. There should be a complete alignment between your strategic priorities, company culture and external communications. What makes this alignment possible is the brand narrative, which drives every decision. The question is whether yours is compelling enough to inspire, convince and engage.

In a next article, I’ll outline the core elements of a successful content strategy. But in the meantime, I’d like to invite you to download and use our very first ressource, a humble self-reflection tool that will get you started on your journey as an audience-first brand. 

Download What’s Your Point of View? 10 Questions to Define Your Message and Reach Audiences With Impact.