DMR #14: Mickey Lonchar – What types of content marketing don’t work anymore?

David: Is it necessary to persuade people to buy from you online or can great informative content do the job for you by itself? What types of content marketing don’t work anymore? Do you need to cover as many bases as possible when publishing your content or is it focusing on just one platform best? Those are just three of the questions that I intend to ask today’s special guest, Mickey Lonchar. Mickey, welcome to DMR.

Mickey Lonchar
Mickey Lonchar

Mickey Lonchar: Hi, David. Nice to be with you.

David: Great to have you here. Mickey describes himself as a Chief Persuasion Officer, a media neutral content creator, crafting big ideas for marketers of all sizes and finding creative ways to amplify them through the integration of great customer experience. Mickey, is it possible to build a great business nowadays without being a regular content creator?

Mickey Lonchar: I think it’s possible. It’s almost like if you’re very well known, you have an established reputation already, people are already spreading good words about you, yes, it is possible but for most of us who don’t have the luxury of having been around for 25 years and have a very loyal customer base, content marketing is a way to really connect with potential customers and fans. One of the biggest changes, I think, since, I’ll say in the last 20 years, but it’s really speeded up recently has been the change of control of the marketing process from the marketer to the consumer or the user.

It used to be that if I’m a marketer, I controlled especially the communication. You really only heard what I wanted you to hear, whether it was through paid advertising or public relations or whatever. I also determined where you could find this product, pretty much how much you’ll pay for it, and on and on, so in that process you were getting a lot of information from me, no one else. These days, communication, data, information is everywhere and as an example, if I were to purchase an item that I don’t buy everyday, like say a dishwasher, something like that where I don’t really have a lot of the knowledge necessary to make a good decision on my own, I could find all sorts of information about it just by reading consumer blogs or chat rooms, people who’ve had experiences with a particular brand or had problems with it.

Amazon, for example, where you can buy appliances these days, you’ll read reviews from people who really liked it, people who didn’t like it, blah, blah, blah. I can do comparisons with other units. I can shop for the best price. I can do all of that without ever involving the marketer, so it’s really important for marketers to really understand how this process is working and that these days you’re really just one voice of thousands that consumers are getting. Content marketing really is a way to make that voice relevant that you have to really anticipate people’s needs, to help them along their journey, and to be seen as the good guy, the guy who really was there that helped me out without having in mind that, “Well, if I give you this information, then I expect you to buy my product from me.”