Serious practitioners of content marketing inevitably face significant content challenges. A review of surveys and discussions of top content challenges reveals the operational nature of the underlying causes of many of these challenges.
However, I seldom see content strategy guidelines address operational issues. This is a major shortcoming of current thinking. Strategy and planning for content marketing is a different and complex task for most newcomers. But if you look at the real issues practitioners who have gone before you face, you will want to figure this out quickly.
One of the most useful models we use is referred to as the “problem-cause model”. Like many powerful ideas, this idea is simple. But work with it and you will experience key insights that will help with both strategy and operations execution. This 4 minute video will explain the model.
There is a tendency to rely solely on new tools or technology to provide efficiency and productivity enhancements. A rich history, and many models, demonstrate that process change is often the key to execution and cost related breakthroughs. Marketers should take heed. The traditional “point production” process for creating content is too limited for the new requirements of the content marketing world.
The problem-cause model is used to address the shift many companies are making from selling products to conducting a consultative, solution-oriented sales. Isn’t this fundamentally what content marketing is about: identifying and providing useful insights to customer’s problems?
What do you see as the underlying causes of your primary content challenges? This is such a significant issue I will provide my suggestions in future posts.
