Content marketing strategy is stupid. There, I said it. Everyone knows the internet is just a fad, so developing a content marketing strategy is a gigantic waste of time.
Yeah sure, research shows that content strategy produces three times more leads per dollar, but who really needs to triple their return on investment? Raking in such a big ROI will lay a heavy burden on your accounting team, and you might just end up paying them overtime to calculate your organization’s profits. You’ll also gain public trust, more engaged prospects and happier clients. C’mon now, nobody wants that!
Almost nobody does content marketing. A paltry 53 percent of businesses spend time and money on content marketing, which means more than half of your competitors are using content marketing to get ahead. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of time to jump on the bandwagon, as the trend towards content marketing is growing – pretty soon, all of your competitors will dominate the internet while you maintain your organization’s position as that rare jewel that nobody knows about.
Who even knows what a content marketing strategy is, anyway?
To be honest, I’m not even sure what content marketing success looks like and I’m not alone – in a 2015 survey by Content Marketing Institute, 55 percent of B2B companies said they wouldn’t know what content marketing success was if it hit them in the wallet. Well, they didn’t actually say that, but you get my point: a lot of organizations don’t really know how developing a content marketing strategy can help them reach a wider audience and earn more money.
The whole thing sounds confusing, really. First you’re supposed to create an outline of your company’s needs, such as:
1. $100 billion revenue stream with zero overhead
2. Brand recognition so wide people are naming their babies after you
3. The largest customer base known to humankind
Next, develop a handful of imaginary friends, known in the business world as customer personas. You basically sit around and dream up problems that your imaginary customers might face every day, and then you figure out how your organization’s products or services can solve those problems.
Your customer persona’s list of needs might include:
1. Too much expendable cash
2. An embarrassing, annoying, or inconvenient problem that only your organization can fix
3. A large group of friends and family who share that problem and also have too much money
Then comes the content marketing strategy part – you build detailed plans for using content to show your customers that you feel their pain, and that only you know how to make them happy. You’ll figure out what sorts of content, such as blogs or videos, your fans might like. The content would tell your brand story in an appealing way, of course, to attract your audience’s attention.|
The next step is to create content that address the specific needs of specific customers and publish it on a regular, predetermined basis. This is ridiculous – aside from yearly holidays, pre-planned sales events and established busy seasons, how would you even know when to post content? Oh sure, the most successful marketers lay out a fresh spread of content a few times every day, but let’s not pull a muscle here – 51 percent of respondents to a recent survey say their firm publishes content at least once a day and 31 percent say usually publish content once a week.
I mean, why not just hang a static website out there and call it a day? (Although I did hear a funny joke the other day – “The best place to hide a dead body is page two of Google.”) Implementing a content marketing strategy can help bring your website to the front page of Google and other search engines, where qualified customers can actually find you. *shudder*
And don’t even get me started on content marketing on social media. It’s like the wild west out there, with customers and fans “liking” and sharing your content as if it were a big bowl of nachos or something. Ridiculous! How will your organization remain an enigma if you go around attracting that sort of attention to yourself?
Why anyone would want to take advantage of the world wide web to advertise their organization is beyond me, frankly. Things go “viral,” people start visiting my website and buying my products, my organization becomes famous and beloved… I just don’t need the kind of positivity and success that developing a content marketing strategy can bring.
For more information on building a content marketing strategy, consult with your freelance writer. Professional writers can guide you on creating the type of appealing content that addresses your customer’s needs and boosts your bottom line.
Lynn H has been a professional writer, providing exceptional content online and offline, for nearly 20 years. In that time, she has penned thousands of articles for doctors, universities, researchers, small businesses, nursing organizations, sole proprietors and more. She writes everything from blogs to white papers; her specialty is putting complex scientific concepts in simple terms. She specializes in medical writing, creating informative and engaging content for professionals in medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, medical manufacturing, chiropractics, optometry, emergency care, plastic surgery and others.
