It’s 5.30 and i am sitting in my garden at dawn, under a half moon. It’s quiet apart from loud chatter from the garden birds. Easy to think at this time of the day. Another swig of freshly made coffee and I am ready to tap something out.
I was going to call this article, “How to beat the ass of Kim Kardashian,” but that does not scan right. Plus I have done Kim Kardashian’s ass before, which also does not scan right. Perhaps I should leave Kim Kardashian’s ass alone.
So I go with Pokemon Go, what can go wrong with that?
Today you are going to take Pokemon Go and beat it into the ground, at least you think you are.
Because you are going to publish a blog post, what was it called? “10 ways to blah blah blah”.
You have finally finished the article. You are happy, even though you know the blog post will fail. You are happy because you know it meets your primary goal, which is to get your dumb ass of a boss off your back.
It wont work of course because people are not interested in reading “10 Ways to blah blah blah”. But your dumb ass of a boss, the marketing manager doesn’t realise that.
As a blogger for hire, a word slave, you know that the end reader is not whom you should be pleasing. The person you need to please is your dumb ass boss, who always requires stuff to be done at the last minute, who has no thought for strategic planning or connecting up with what was produced last week. Plus each time he goes to a conference he comes back with a new technique, be it longer copy, every blog post being a list, infographics… etc.
Unfortunately no one yet has told him that content marketing is dead, that it’s more about building a better product these days. You are wedged between the ass of Kim Kardashian and Pokemon Go. Or at least your content is. In other words, no one will notice your blog post. But they will be hunting down an content to do with Pokemon Go.
The answer the marketing manager yells is “more promotion”. “Lets buy sackfuls of the stuff”. As if promotion can be bought off the shelves of the local Kwicky Mart.
“Your cousin once had a drink with that journalist on the Times,” the marketing manager yells at the social media intern. “Get him on the phone now, there’s a drink in it for you.”
But these days, unless the story is about Pokemon Go and physical injury, the journalist will not be interested.
In this scenario, when the media has moved on (as it always does) from the craze of Pokemon Go, the marketing manager yells out, “We need Pokemon Go content here people, has any one thought of an infographic.”
If this sounds like your boss, I empathise.
Content marketing is not dead.
But your content marketing is dead, or never gets seen which is the same thing. Simply because there is too much competition for the attention of people out there and no amount of promotion is going to work.
It’s no longer about the content, it’s about the product.
“But I make content,” you explain.
No, what you are really making is a product. Great content should be seen as a stand alone product. It must earn it’s right to exist in the Universe. Everything else is filler, and as a blogger for hire you know all about that.
Content marketing is seen by some as marketing the product the company is selling. This is the wrong mindset, unfortunately the marketing manager wants the company product marketed and does not care about the content, but is told that content marketing is the way. But this leads to a failed content marketing campaign, because the content is never given enough investment in time and money to work.
The often cited example of content marketing is the Michelin Guide, but this is a stand alone product. It has always stood alone with no direct competition and is nothing to do with the selling of tires.
Do you really think that content marketing with blog posts is going to achieve a successful ROI?
Blog posts can support the buying process as a consumer searches for specific, narrow, product information. But as a stand alone product that changes your emotional relationship between the consumer and the brand, c’mon, forget about it.
The solution to this problem is simple:
- You find what the crowd hungers for.
- You produce that which they desire.
- You feed the crowd before the competition turns up.
The content you produce must:
- Earn its place in the Universe.
- Exist in a space with no or little competition.
- Be conceived of as a standalone product.
Very few will get this right, and this is good because those who do will get a very tasty ROI.
I fully accept the irony of the fact that this is a blog post, which in a way it has the purpose of marketing my content marketing services. But that’s not really true, I write this because the issue has been in my mind for a number of months. I help businesses with their communication and persuasion because I enjoy developing solutions to the problems that arise.
So even if no one reads this blog post it has at least enabled me to organise and justify my thoughts.
Thus it has earned it’s right to exist.