This is the year when your content marketing will disintegrate

2016_B2B_maturity-600x704
In September, Gartner's Jake Sorofman predicted the flame out of content marketing as the industry reaches the end of the peak of inflated expectations and enters the "trough of disillusionment."


Of course he is right. 


There are three kinds of marketers: those who have rejected content marketing because it doesn't jibe with how they view how marketing works; those who have embraced it as merely another media channel; and those who have realized they need to change how they communicate with the market. The first will feel vindicated by the coming slaughter (they will still be wrong). The second will either join the first or lose their jobs because they failed to produce as they promised their bosses. The third will be hailed as gurus and the market for content marketing will shrink.


The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has mirrored the Gartner findings in their 2016 outlook with a further insight: 55 percent of B2B marketers have no idea what effective or successful content marketing even looks like. As the caterpillar said to Alice, "If you don't know where you are going, any path will take you there."


CMI's numbers showed the reason for the growing discontent and confusion: 67 percent of surveyed marketers are immature practitioners. In other words, two-thirds of all marketers don't know what they are doing when it comes to content.


To me, this is all good news. The hardest thing to convince clients is that their content is really pretty bad because it mirrors the same kind of one-way communication they've always had with their customers and they don't know why it doesn't work anymore. What's more, marketers continue to fly by the seat of their pants when it comes to a content strategy, meaning they have prepared nothing to guide the company regarding strategic content.


So you have a double whammy when it comes to content marketing: you have people who run it that can't create original, engaging content, nor do they have a plan to measure what is and isn't working.


Are you one of those companies that has been dabbling with content marketing and being wholly unsatisfied with the result? I have two freebies to offer you. First is the CMI white paper on documenting a strategy. Second is our free evaluation of your current program. We can get you on track quickly.


Related articles

Customer Experience Recognition Awards to launch at IDW2014

Getting a vision for content strategy


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm old and you are not. That's good thing.

Image
I turned 64 this year and have been on the receiving end of scams and offers related to social security, dementia and Medicare for weeks now. I'm also getting offered senior discounts without asking. None of that has bothered me as much as getting dismissed because I'm no longer in my 30s (which bothered me as much when I was in my 20s). Today, however I had a revelation and I'm feeling much better about my age. I was doing a session with the marketing team for a small business back by telephone and was in the process of breaking down their preconceived notions about communication when the youngest member of the team asked me, "How do you know this is what our customers are thinking?" "Because I've been doing this for 40 years," I replied. "Oh." She replied.  Then one of the business owners, well into his 70s asks, "Wait a minute. You said you've been doing this fo r 40 years. How old are you?" "I'm 64....
Read more

Speaking of ethics in sponsored content...

Image
An article today in Forbes on ethics in sponsored content  brought back memories of our recent discussions regarding UBM Tech's methodology changes and the larger discussion about whether corporations can be expected to deliver ethical content. The article points out that Edelman has posted their own set of ethics regarding sponsored content that remarkably mirrors Footwasher Media's position:  That it isn't PR or advertising.  It's something different from what most corporate advocates practice and it must be, by nature, ethical or it loses all value. Many people in the news business have taken ethical standards for granted.  They seem to believe that they are intertwined with the genesis of journalism itself.  It isn't true.  The news business, supported by advertising began in the 1700s with Benjamin Franklin's founding of the Pennsylvania Gazette , but the separation of advertising from editorial did not appear until th...
Read more

Why you don't (or do) like social media, Part Three

Image
When you boil down attitudes toward and execution of social media practices, it's all about leadership.  Real leadership, not the popular definition that rises from the horrific misinterpretation  of Geoffrey Moore's book, Crossing the Chasm .  Let me explain that reference a bit more in depth first. Moore stated fairly simply that for a technology company to be successful, it must attain the perception of leadership in a market niche.  The misinterpretation of that concept is what screws up the marketing for so many companies.  Moore's statement was an indicator of success and a strategy, not a tactic.  If you are the perceived market niche leader, Moore explains, THEN you know you successfully crossed the chasm.  Therefore your marketing strategy must revolve around developing the perception of leadership.  However, most companies believe that saying you are a leader in your marketing documents, even when you are clearl...
Read more