Maybe you came on this blog after seeing this link somewhere on social media or maybe almighty Google thought that this will be a great resource for your search intent.
But before we go further with our article and find out about “The Moments When Content Marketing is Dead?” let me ask you why do you want to know why content marketing is dead? Are you afraid of something or do you think you struggle too much with your content marketing strategy? Or maybe you’re trying to find new trends to grow your business?
Because there are plenty of marketers and professionals that want to know why content marketing is dead and what’s the next step.
I’m about to give you some clues about the moment when content marketing is dead, and if any of those sound familiar to you, then you need to go back to the basics and see what you’re doing wrong.
So When is Content Marketing Dead?
1. When you don’t understand its Real Value
There is much more deeper value in content marketing than you can imagine. Some of you might think that content marketing means just blogging, sending some newsletters or recording a podcast.
Let me give you an example: is painting only about colors? Then why do you need a canvas? Why do you need brushes? Why do you need time? Why do you need a painter? Why do you need creativity? And so on.
We can look the same way at content marketing. It’s not only about a blog post, a newsletter, the SEO, the customer or about brand awareness.
It’s about all of the things I just mentioned put together in one single piece. That is content marketing!
2. When you don’t have a Tangible Goal
Before I became interested in content marketing and before I started hearing more about this strategy I was just a simple blogger who owned a blog about marketing and social media. I blog just to make myself noticed and to understand some advertising campaigns. Sometimes I blog to get more traffic and make people acknowledge my presence.
But when I first found out about content marketing I thought “Well, it’s about doing a blogging strategy, combined with social media and voila”.
But after a few months of working with this mindset and also listening to some podcasts about content marketing, I realized that everything I’m doing is wrong.
Then I went to one of my colleagues and talked to him about content marketing and we started writing down our strategy, our goals and the purpose of it. But after we’ve finished writing it down, we looked at that paper and saw that something was missing. We not only needed a goal, we needed a tangible goal that could help us think better.
So we re-designed our goal and made it tangible, trying to push our limits every time. And it worked.
Joe Pulizzi, who is a Content Marketing Evangelist wrote a compelling article about the 7 business goals of Content Marketing.
So if you want to know why content marketing can help your brand awareness, how it can be a lead generator, how to improve your customer service and other points, then bookmark it, read it and every time you struggle with your content marketing goal, go back to refresh your memory.
3. When you don’t know what and how to Measure
I often found that I didn’t know how to measure and what to measure about my content marketing work. I knew that if I’m writing a blog post I need to measure traffic, social media shares and comments. But was that all?
I felt that there was nothing else to add, but I didn’t know where to start or where to look.
So I talked again to my colleague about measurement and analytics and he taught me how to measure my content marketing projects, why I need to focus on keywords, but also try to write for my audience and not for my brand. He also shared Rand Fishkins’s video with me about 10x content (even if I already saw it) but at the time it resonated with me a lot.
Yes, you can measure the traffic of your website through your content marketing projects. Yes, you can measure your brand’s presence in the online industry through your content marketing projects. Yes, you can measure how many people talk about your brand and how many leads you can generate through your content marketing tactics.
You can measure almost everything.
But you need to know what to measure, how to measure and why you need to measure it. And that depends on the point i already talked about (see #2).
4. When it’s more about you and less about your customers
How would you measure something that is only about you and the goals you want to achieve are only about you?
When your content marketing is all about you instead of your community or people, it’s easy fo other to think content marketing is dead.
Everytime I talk to a marketing specialist about what they should do to gain more with their inbound marketing, content marketing and social media I let them know that content marketing is not done the way it was back in the 90s. And advertising is no longer just one way. Users and communities can offer us feedback and engage with the brand.
Now it’s about your customer. Their needs, their wants, their dreams, their comfort, their present and future and everything revolves around them.
Ok, it’s not 100% only about them. But if you combine the strategy #2 (tangible goals) with strategy #3 (measurement) and and add #4 – your customer – then you know why content marketing is more alive than ever.
5. When you really want it to die
Yes my friend, there are people who wish content marketing was dead. And not because it’s not a good marketing strategy but because there are plenty of people who just wants things to die.
Think about print. How many people thought that print was going to die and nobody is going to buy newspapers or magazines? Well today, when a brand thinks about launching themselves in the print industry they definitely know the importance of print. Think about Airbnb or Uber!
That’s because print is now at a higher standard in content marketing. And yes, print must work with online and online can work with print. But that doesn’t mean print is dead. And the same goes for email marketing, banner ads and social media.
The only thing that is dead now is the old traditional marketing that wants to make room in the new marketing.
People have changed. The market has changed. Needs have changed. And marketing has also changed.
Conclusion
So my friends, if you really think content marketing is dead, then let it be dead only for you and try your own thing (whether it’s old marketing or new marketing).
But then be responsible about it and don’t complain that marketing is broken.
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Photo © Iryna Savitskaya | Dreamstime.com
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