Content marketing is one of the most important factors in business today. Everything might ride on your content. Yet, cheap production and distribution could wind up costing you everything.
All business experts and marketers appear to agree that content is king today. If done well it can carry a good business idea to great heights. Yet, many misunderstand this type of marketing, and what they need to actually make it work.
The Importance of Content
Facebook, Netflix, and Snapchat are among the companies which have recently signed big content deals. Billions are being invested in it. Content is vital. It is regarded as the biggest factor in business today, and is separating the leaders from the losers. The applies at every level from brand new side hustle to startups, to the biggest organizations in history. It is expected that this will continue for the foreseeable future.
Still, many are stuck on how much they should be investing in content, how to publish it, and what should take priority.
The Big Content Marketing Myth
The biggest myth and misconception that entrepreneurs and small business owners need to get over is the idea that they can conduct content marketing for free. It is never free.
Getting over this mental hurdle will help many, many entrepreneurs and businesses to get unstuck, and leap forward to profitable actions and real results. Unfortunately, blogging and social media is still often referred to as ‘free marketing’. That really throws people and ventures off, and has ultimately bankrupted and sabotaged many careers and enterprises which could have been very successful, if the expectations were accurate.
Major news publishers have spent as much as $100k plus, just on creating and publishing a single article. Millions are being spent on video production, even just for YouTube and Snapchat. Most startups can’t even imagine those figures. Yet, with very few exceptions, even Facebook and blogging is going to require a notable investment to do correctly. Even if you are taking the DIY route, and are an expert writer or have mastered shooting video with your camera phone, there are still basic costs. This may include purchasing original images, design, administrative help, and hosting. Less than 1% will find they are going to get the best ROI on their time by personally creating their own content marketing.
The bottom line is that it is not free. It may be necessary, and deliver some of the best marketing returns for your business, but make sure you have a reasonable budget for the level of content needed to deliver on your desired results.
The Q vs. Q Question
What’s more important in content marketing; quantity or quality?
The vast amounts of content being published daily, and that consume our feeds make us feel we have to be constantly posting in order to get noticed and get those numbers up. The data has shown that there is a tipping point when more content does offer compounding results. Yet, we also can’t ignore the following stats from B2B marketing Insider.
- Less than half of digital vendor content is found useful
- Buyers estimate that content is, on average, 50% too long
- Vendors who make these mistakes are 27% less likely to be considered on the buyer short list
So, in order to generate more real sales from content marketing, it is clear that it is vital to produce quality material that consumers can actually digest. Just blasting junk in mass, or following the misguided rumors on the internet that you need really massive and long pieces of content probably isn’t going to cut it, in most cases.
If you just push out cheap junk, you may never get the chance to earn real business, or repeat business and referrals. Everyone is working on a budget. If yours doesn’t currently allow for large amounts of high quality content, then less may be more profitable. Just make sure your team knows that’s what you are looking for. Or they may think opposite, and think they are helping by rushing out work as cheap as they can.
Some feel they need to ‘dumb down’ there content to get likes, shares, and followers today, but even this doesn’t mean you can afford to do that in a low-quality way.
Remember Your Goals
Some content can be basic to help with SEO and long-term results, as well as for staying top of mind, but quality and engagement matters too. If your main concern is leads now, create an awesome piece, create a funnel around it, and work it. That could be a webinar, book, blog post, article, or video. Then grow on that. Just make sure how you display it is equally as awesome. Just like how food tastes is at least 50-90% reliant on the presentation, so is how great your content marketing is perceived, and the value that people will assign to your brand, product, and service.
