Do a quick Google search of “content marketing” and you will surely be bombarded with facts, statistics, personal stories, how-to’s, and countless claims by “professionals” about the wonders of content marketing.
Content marketing, or the “marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience -- with the objective of driving profitable customer action” (thank you CMI), has become exponentially more popular in recent years and not without reason. We all know that content marketing is an effective and innovative strategy but we also all know that the Internet is not fact-checked!
So today we are going to try clue the world in on a few of the biggest content marketing myths we know about!
#1 The quantity of content is more
The quantity of content is NOT more important than the quality of content!
important than the quality.
Think about the above statement for a minute. If you have a Facebook account and you “friend” someone who publishes content that appears on your news feed which is completely irrelevant and void of value to you, what will happen? You will most likely become annoyed and either hide their posts or delete that “friend”. Now what if that “friend” posted 10 times more irrelevant content than before? You would probably delete than 10 times faster than before, right? The same concept works for content marketing. Potential customer want relevant content that helps them, not tons of irrelevant content!
We’re not saying that the quantity of content produced is not important, but it does not matter how much content is produced if that content is of poor quality.
#2 Content marketing is just blogging.
Blogging is just one of many outlets for content creation. Infographics, videos, eBooks, cartoons, pod casts, photos, and GIF's are just a few of many forms of content that your business can take advantage of. One of the requirements of content marketing is to use the right form of content to reach the right audience.
At p80, we love writing blog posts, but that does not mean every business and organization should keep a blog. Produce your content through the channel that will most effectively reach the audience you wish to speak to!
#3 Content marketing is cheap.
Yes, hash tags are cheaper than radio advertisements, but that doesn't mean content marketing is cheap. If fact, content marketing must be budgeted like any other form of marketing.
Also, think about how much time it takes to write a quality blog post. From brainstorming, to revising, to formatting, to publishing -- creating content takes a lot of time and that time adds up as you continue to create content. And as we all know, time is money!
#4 Content marketing is quick and easy.
Lack of time is the biggest challenge that B2B content marketers face!
Content marketing requires persistence and patience. You will not gain hundreds of followers on your blog or social media outlets immediately. On the contrary, you will probably gain a few followers a week when you first start out. This will be extremely frustrating, but with persistence your organization will gain dedicated followers who value the information you provide them.
Furthermore, content marketing is not a quicker alternative to traditional marketing. In fact, lack of time is the main challenge that B2B content marketers deal with. Furthermore, according to the Content Marketing Institute, it can take up to six months to start seeing substantial results from content marketing. As CMI cleverly states, you should think of content marketing as more of a marathon than a sprint.
#5 Too much content gives away secrets to your competitors.
Let’s face it, if your competitors want to know your business secrets badly enough, they will find out one way or another. Your business’s blog posts and videos about your products or services are not going to give your competitors the upper
Content Marketing will not undermine your business's secrets!
hand. On the contrary, you will have the upper hand because you will be educating potential customers and clients, and providing them valuable and relevant information that will hopefully lead to increased sales.
