Whether you know it or not, if you’ve had any marketing professional advise you on marketing in the last year or two, they probably pointed you in the direction of Content Marketing. It’s a bit of a new term, but it covers a pretty obvious idea, one you see everywhere around you once you know the phrase.
Per Wikipedia, “Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action. Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader attention and improving brand loyalty better than traditional marketing techniques.”
The team here at Better Way to Say It is 100% devoted, in-love-with, committed to the idea of Content Marketing. It’s in our name, in every one of our Marketing Action Plans, and the core element behind the success of our clients. It’s proven, relatively simple to do, and can have quick ROI. It’s the reason we set up SMART Blogsites, the “secret sauce” behind our successful SEO campaigns, and the meat of every email campaign we advise on. Content is what makes your customers love you, and trade their trust and dollars for your expertise and insights. Even top marketing guru Seth Godin agrees that “Content Marketing is the Only Marketing Left” (via the always-spot-on Junta42).
Here’s the kicker: it’s not for everyone. Not every company has a wealth of expertise ready for public consumption. And the effort it takes to dig up, edit and create that content is sometimes just too much. Unfortunately, it’s the reason you see so many “dead” blogs and receive some “monthly” email newsletters only once a year.
We’ve spent a lot of time this past years preaching the virtues of Content Marketing, educating new converts, and trying to encourage, cajole and beg them to keep at it. Keep posting those blogs. Keep sending out that newsletter. Stay active on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Keep writing white papers, ebooks, how-to reports and the like. We even create tools and technology and support systems to help them do it.
But if your heart isn’t in it, it just won’t work.
You can’t hire out someone to blog for you 100% of the time. You can’t replace your own thoughts with a ghost-tweeter or a Facebook stand-in. Without at least a nugget of an idea from you, even the best social media gurus are often left posting generic, useless stuff, because it’s missing the content from the real expert about your business – you.
So we’re drawing a line in the sand here at Better Way to Say It. We’re still excited to share what we know about Content Marketing with anyone who wants to listen. But starting very soon, you’ll see a shift in our marketing towards a new type of client – authors & speakers. We believe that the people who will ultimately succeed at Content Marketing have to love sharing their ideas. They have to be committed already to pouring their expertise onto the page and into the microphone.
Content Marketing fails when sharing your expertise and insights gets lost behind other priorities. If you love to share, we can’t wait to hear from you!
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