Content Marketing Strategy

Content Marketing Budgets Almost Double, Yet 48% Don’t Trust the Numbers [research data]

Content marketing used to be blogs, audio, maybe a video here or there. Yet last year, according to research from the Content Council, content budgets went from 12.6% two years ago, to 23.6% of marketing budgets today – and they estimate that might become 1/3 of marketing budgets dedicated to this nebulous thing called content by 2017.

Right now creating content means:

  • Do it yourself – editorial and journalism skillsets, plus creative
  • Hire someone – same issues as above, plus expectations that somehow anyone else’s content should bury your results.
  • Get the audience to do it – user generated content, and measurable social sharing are available…but you lose total control (which is why this often works…)

What’s lacking is confidence in this new world of content marketing driven by mobile, where selling isn’t allowed and measuring activity with real, actionable data is the goal.

Content Marketing StrategyThe problem with today’s content marketing begins with the goal and its ad-like time frame.

Content is not an ad on a site which most advertisers trust. It is a piece of a sequence that most create randomly, even today.

“Indeed, only 52% of marketers surveyed by the Content Council expressed confidence current measurability standards, compared to 65% of survey respondents in the media industry.”

Key insights

  • Content marketing is based on an old model, search. Everywhere people say, start with the keywords, because that is what people search for…but people on social aren’t searching.
  • Search has a goal, while social media does not; if your content model begins with a behavior that has high intention to buy (search), that’s great. But if your model is social, the same actions you take in search will poison your social results, because the content has to guide, subtlely and slowly, the consumer.
  • No marketer likes subtle and slow, they want fast and now. Content marketing budgets should grow over time, from 10-20% initial return in 30 days to full conversion 6 months later, depending on product.
  • Even this is just one model that cannot be copied, because content marketing is truly a fingerprint. Not just of you, the brand, or your business, but of the customer, because it’s their social story you are entering.

It’s easy to understand why so many businesses are lost, because the model for creating content is based on an old blogging and podcasting model, content designed to sell ads around.

Now the merger of the content and the ad is converging in a term “native advertising”, which while not totally accurate, is the first step to measuring how content can market and drive traffic, without slamming people over the head with salespeak and act now buttons.

If you really want to trust your content marketing, you will custom design the approach, timing, events, and pattern interrupts (where you interrupt the routines for your content, and your audience), and gaining actionable data on your audience that can actually benefit them, and you.

The problem with content marketers, most marketers never created content or generated user content, and most content creators never marketed (and sometimes don’t like marketing at all).

It’s time to bury the bias and discover the truth; you have to test your story driving social traffic, like you test your marketing, only measure over 6 months, not 1.


You May Also Like These Topics...
Goal setting

Adapt and make your goals prove themselves true.

I’ve been talking with people about  what’s coming up and everyone wants this step-by-step easy way to go through business and life. I understand we need direction we need focus; we’re all in love with this idea of setting goals and what happens is the unexpected. Because when you base your ideas your business rolling […]

Mini Facebook marketing case study and Growth Generation podcast #2

What can Facebook marketing and Audience Insights teach you about growth marketing? Facebook marketing continues to grow, morph, and dominate with Google. Find out how to get Facebook marketing going, even if you don’t spend a dime on ads. Facebook Audience Insights can open doors to targeting, customers, and what your first steps should be…. […]

Growth marketing

Growth marketing: What is the Growth Generation Podcast about?

What are the Growth Experiences that drive growth marketing? Growth Generation is about creating 3 growth marketing experiences; your personal one, your outsourcers and employees and even family and friends, and the customer experience in meeting, learning, and doing business with you. Growth Marketing – Podcast Highlights 0 – 50 seconds:  the new cycles of […]

Culture Sculpture Podcast – The Origin Story

You want to share your story, so you begin writing it down, separate from your audience. You try to deliver something to make them notice. What you’re doing is pitching darts at a target that doesn’t exist, because the dynamic nature of content marketing and social media means the old ways don’t work. Broadcasting tons […]

Tags: , ,
Previous Post
attentionconversion
Content Marketing Social Media Lead Generation

4 Social Media Marketing Headlines Igniting “Attention Conversion”

Next Post
Ad Industry Moving by Declan Dunn
Digital Marketing - Brevenue Social Media Lead Generation

What’s the biggest disruption in the Digital Ad and Marketing Industries?

The Growth Generation Method

Simply Responsive LLC
2485 Notre Dame Blvd. Suite 370 #35
Chico, CA.
(530) 235-6331