The Top 10 Things You’ll NEVER Hear Good Content Marketers Say

November 11, 2013

I’m sure David Letterman has been meaning to use this list on his show. Since he hasn’t yet, however, I’ll take the liberty.photo

Without further ado, here are the top 10 things you’ll never hear good content marketers say:

10.) Yeah, I don’t really give a damn about my target audience. To be a good content marketer, you’ve got to understand your audience — who they are, what they care about, what problems they’re facing, etc. If you don’t,  it’s going to be virtually impossible to create the kind of content that resonates with them and gets them to make a purchase.

9.) Of course quantity trumps quality. Yes, it’s important to produce a certain volume of content to get traction, but at the end of the day, the way to succeed in content marketing is to create really great, high-impact content. Just remember, a few great pieces of content will generally go a lot further than tons of crappy ones.

8.) Nah that’s ok, I don’t need your ideas. Wrong, you absolutely need other people’s ideas! As content marketers, we’re often not the subject matter experts, so we need to tap into the thought leaders around us and turn their ideas into great content. Without them, we’d be lost.

7.) So what’s all this fuss about metrics? Content marketing cannot be an effective business tool if you don’t know what impact it’s having. Metrics are critical for figuring out what’s working and what isn’t so that you can continuously adjust your strategy. If you’re not paying attention to your metrics, you’re going to miss the boat.

6.) I don’t really worry about SEO. If you want your content to be found, you absolutely have to worry about SEO. Your content needs to be what people find first when they start searching on Google.

5.) What’s a content strategy? Successful content marketing isn’t a series of random activities. It’s a highly coordinated, focused, and goal oriented process that requires a solid, thoughtful strategy.

4.) You know, I really should make our content more self-promotional. No way. Content marketing isn’t about talking about how great your products and services are. It’s about providing your audience with the kinds of relevant, useful information they need to be successful.

3.) Once a piece of content is created, I’m done worrying about it. Content creation is only one piece of the content marketing pie. You also have to figure out how you are going to get your content in front of the right people at the right times. That often means you have to have a great content distribution plan in place.

2.) Boo-yah, I’ve found the silver bullet! Sure, there are plenty of content marketing best practices out there that you should be following (OpenView’s recent content marketing eBook contains quite a few), but the truth is there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Content marketing requires a lot of experimentation to see what’s going to work with your audience. It takes a lot of innovation, too.

1.) You know, I’d really rather be… Great content marketers generally enjoy their work. Sure they face challenges, but they love figuring out how to overcome them and constantly create innovative and interesting content that drives their business forward. People who don’t love what they do generally aren’t very effective at it.

Content Marketing Director

<strong>Kevin Cain</strong> is the Content Marketing Director for <a href="http://www.bluechipcommunication.com.au/">BlueChip Communication</a>, Australia's leading financial services communication firm. Before joining BlueChip, Kevin was the Director of Content Strategy for OpenView.