“Edwin showed what he and his team do in terms of content marketing . He proudly showed various resources that he uses to provide advertisers and media buyers with information: videos, fact sheets, infographics, white papers, radio commercials to promote insights, cases, e-mail marketing, sales presentations and events that he calls 'live storytelling'. And not without results, because the conversion on those resources was more than excellent. His marketing funnel runs just as smoothly as the A2 between Amsterdam and Utrecht these days. And then they also have the NRC Media Academy.”
“What’s that?” you ask. “In order to engage with customers and turn account managers into ‘industry specialists,’ those salespeople need to undergo further training and take a knowledge test every quarter.”
“Profi!” you say. “Yes, and very necessary,” I say. Because “old school selling doesn’t work anymore,” says Edwin. And I completely agree. That’s exactly why I don’t understand it. He was selling himself. Old school. What do you think was on his last sheet?”
"No idea…"
“It said, ‘Are we doing a good job with content marketing?’ He didn’t ask us, he asked himself. And he very modestly answered his own question with, “I think so, yes!”
Blendle
“So he was quite pleased with himself. Rightly so?” you ask. “As far as I could judge, it’s not a bad B-to-B content marketing case, but I expected him to at least say something about the news that Alexander Klöpping had launched a new service: Blendle . They call it the ‘iTunes for journalism’. It’s an app that lets you buy individual newspaper articles. Articles that famous Dutch people or your friends recommend to you. NRC is also participating. Anyway, after more than half an hour I still didn’t know how to think. I mean, how to think as a publisher. I only thought one thing.”
“Who's next?”
"No."
“Break?”
"No."
"Sex?"
“Hey, what do you take me for?”
“What then? Beer?”
“I thought: if you firmly believe that traditional advertising doesn’t work anymore. If you’ve completely changed your mind and think that more should be invested in content marketing. If you think that you need to have a deeper relationship with the customer… why are you selling flat ads? That’s like an atheist going door to door to sell the Bible.”
“Now that you mention it…”
“And what if your clients – the advertisers – japan phone data start investing in content marketing themselves. If they want to offer their editorial, branded content to their target groups through you? How do you do that if you want to keep commerce and editorial strictly separate?”
“Did you ask him that?”
“That last one, yes! Edwin indicated that you have to be very careful with that, that the separation is sacred. And I can imagine that with a title like NRC. That is easier with a magazine like Linda.”
“Yes, tell me about that. You were impressed?”
“That's right. That was also about our own success, but Jildou did share her ideas with us to some extent.