More and more businesses are allocating a portion of their 2012 marketing budgets toward creating content. But, there are still many organizations that can’t seem to stop putting all their eggs into the traditional marketing basket.
To better equip you with the answers to the questions (or excuses) from your C-level executives, here are five content marketing myths debunked.
We can’t prove our ROI.
FALSE
New technologies allow for us to effectively measure content marketing. Not only can it be measured, but your efforts can be directly tied to specific goals allowing for greater accountability. There are many automated and manual tracking tools that can tell you the what, when, where and how of your content reach.
It’s too expensive. We don’t have the budget.
FALSE
Content marketing does not need to be expensive. Actually, it can save you money. Instead of adding content marketing to your current marketing strategies, audit your paid and earned media efforts and stop doing what you have always done. Start using optimized “earned attention” strategies – attention from media, customers, investors, partners, etc. It’s not just about attracting media attention; it’s about creating real relationships with real people. Content marketing can achieve this for your brand at a minimal cost.
Our industry doesn’t have anything interesting to say.
FALSE
This excuse or myth is one I hear quite frequently when first getting to know our professional service clients. Let’s say you’re a financial service provider. You’re in your industry because you love what you do and you know your services inside and out. But, sometimes it’s hard for you to see how to create interesting content for the masses. The key – you’re not randomly creating content for everyone. You create content for a specific audience who is searching for the answers you can provide.
Work within your topics and themes that your visitors will be interested in. A great place to start – think about all the questions you are asked over the phone or during an initial meeting with a prospective client. Write down the answer, create a FAQ section on your blog and there you go – content that your visitors need to know; content that you can share via email to instantly answer inquiries.
We don’t have the resources to create the content and manage the multiple distribution channels.
FALSE
Okay, so you don’t have a full-time writer on staff or a person who can be dedicated to internal content curation. Fine – let your customers do the work (a.k.a. customer-generated content.) Pay attention to what your customers are doing and saying online. Share what they write about your brand and contact them to develop larger stories highlighting their experiences. Maybe add a forum where customers can ask and answer questions. Launch a monthly webinar where your customers can ask questions and provide feedback on what they want to learn about next. Run video contests through your social media channels. These are many ways to partner with your customers to produce great content.
And, you’re right. There are hundreds of social media channels. But, no one says you have to use every single one. Maybe your audience isn’t as active on Google + as they are on Twitter. Well, then, start using and managing only Twitter. Go where your audience is.
We sell to other businesses, not to people.
FALSE
Even if your business is a B2C company, when you call a company’s phone number or schedule a meeting with a company – you aren’t just talking to a thing – you’re talking to a human being. Those people are the “C” portion of your business. Of course, there are differences between B2B and B2C marketing, but every type of marketing has to do with connecting people to people, P2P. They want to know, how will this printer make my job as an office manager easier?
There are many more misconceptions about content marketing. For instance, having a blog means you have a content marketing program. Um…no it doesn’t. But, we’ll have to tackle that one later.
For more on what content marketing is – and isn’t, check these out.
http://www.deepripples.com/blog/content-marketing-its-not-rocket-science
http://www.deepripples.com/blog/stop-creating-content-noise
http://www.deepripples.com/blog/5-fingers-of-online-marketing
http://www.deepripples.com/blog/content-marketing-the-new-and-improved-pr
