Swimming not sinking in the flood of content marketing

Content marketing is a relatively new term within marketing, however the role of creating content within marketing is nothing new. Previously, copywriting was mainly concerned with advertising headlines and slogans, if you wanted something longer like a brochure or sales flyer, sometimes the PR would be given the task or an agency who specifically created marketing collateral.

When a website needed to be built, the content was simply copied from the corporate brochure and hey presto, you had a website. “I can tick that off my marketing list and never have to worry about it again.”

And then came the first wave of content marketing - companies publishing as much as they wanted on their websites and on blogs and social media platforms, as well. As marketers, we were told that Google needed updated content on our website to help with SEO – so we wrote and wrote, not always relevant, and too often we published words for the sake of words and we thought we had it down pat. 

We would publish pages, search engines would ingest them, searchers would find them with keyword queries, and good content would earn links and rise in rankings. Content marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) were joined at the hip.

According to Marketing Land’s Scott Brinker, “The second wave of content marketing moved from text to richer, more visual content, such as videos, infographics, slide presentations, and beautifully designed e-books and white papers.

While not always optimal from an SEO perspective, this rich and visual content was often much more compelling in the eyes of its human audience. This second wave corresponded with the growth of social media marketing. Content was increasingly produced to encourage “shares” on Twitter and Facebook.

But as more companies have jumped on the content marketing bandwagon, the river of content has become a flood.”

So how do you swim, not sink, in the flood of content marketing? The key is simple – relevance.

Whatever format, length or style you choose for your content marketing – making it relevant for your audience will guide you to achieve your goals.