I’m being serious here, this is not clickbait. You should probably stop content marketing now and spend the money on Facebook ads instead.
The reason being you don’t really care about the people reading your content do you? Admit it. You only care about what they are going to do for you.
Well guess what, people know that.
You got into your business to make a bit of money, inspired by those blog posts with the dude in his hammock and a cool beverage, palm trees in the distance.
And you have made money, but you had to work hard for it and content marketing still does not work for you. Not even you or your boss retweets the content your SEO is pumping out.
That has to be bad doesn’t it, when the boss or CEO doesn’t even promote the content marketing the SEO agency is pushing out.
Hold on a minute.
Why are you outsourcing content marketing to an SEO company? That’s slightly worse than having a web design company doing but never as bad as getting a PR company to do it.
Most CEOs don’t tweet.
Other CEOs are so passionate about their business they seek every outlet to get the word out about how cool their company is.
Ready for Super Bowl 50 ? Cool interactive heatmap from @Fanatics on every TD thrown in the NFL this past season. https://t.co/B2xEVw6JE7
 Doug Mack (@dougmack) February 3, 2016
You cannot outsource that.
If you want to invest in content marketing, understand that for it to work you and your company needs to get behind it and use it as a way for your passion to reach the wider public.
Your brand, your ethos, your integrity is what will drive a great content marketing strategy. If you don’t have these then I am not going to lie to you, it’s going to be hard. What content marketing does is amplify what you already have, if you have a cold, dead heart that is full of a black bile of cynicism. Then that is what is going to get amplified.
But if you really care about your brand, your product, your service, and love your customers then that is what is going to be promoted. If you have these in abundance, then you absolutely need content marketing. Not the stuff you buy off the shelf from a black hearted, cynical, agency with an expensive office with exposed brick walls, pot plants and and bean bags.
Ideally it should be in-house, from the people who really care and know your business. Failing that, hire someone who is passionate about communication and hire them to tell the stories your business has, rather than doing content marketing just because you heard about it at the latest Chamber of Commerce meet up.
Thanks to Dennis for the Tweet inspiration.
The fantastic image was supplied by Greg Westfall