Content was not the King in 2012.
Content Marketing tied with SEO Marketing for third place in their use as internet marketing tools .
Who won?
EMAIL MARKETING!
Yes with 28.5% of respondents in a 2012 industry survey, saying that email marketing was their first choice for marketing their products and services.
Social media was a close second with 24.3%. Then Content and SEO Marketing tied at 18.9%.
But wait……..before you non- believers that Content is King start revamping your marketing campaigns for 2013…..there’s more.
You see the same researchers (CopyPress 2012) that conducted the 2012 study claim that 2013 will be a year of radical change in the online marketing industry. They asked those taking the 2012 survey what their marketing plans were for 2013 and at least 34.8% responded that they intended to invest in Content Marketing!
HELLO…that beats even Social Media by more than 10%!
This is just one survey, and it’s still early in the year (though most marketing budgets are done in Jan – Mar), it certainly reinforces the almost universal opinion that content marketing is here to stay.
And wait……there’s still more.
‘TopRank Online Marketing’ CEO, Lee Odden, shared his insights and case studies with attendees at the SES London Conference for Today’s Experienced Marketing and Advertising Professionals that content marketing remains as King.
Additionally more than two-thirds of respondents (70 percent) of a new report from Econsultancy stated that their companies will increase the amount spent on content marketing in 2013. Odden also cited another Econsultancy/Outbrain Content Marketing Survey Report, in which 90 percent of respondents said that content marketing will become more important over the next 12 months.
What this means is that when big shots like this in our industry say that content marketing is going to be more important in the year to come; EVERYONE will jump on the bandwagon and the marketplace will be flooded with crap!
Really
Those less-than-credible marketers in a hurry to make a quite buck will begin pushing their volumes of worthless content into each niche market. GOOGLE will get upset with the lack of quality content on sites and the rules become more and more restrictive as the the Great One tries desperately to maintain quality in its search tool.
OK, so what does all this mean for you and me?
More will not be better
- Create only quality content.
- Create sustainable (evergreen) content.
- Content should be repurposed, re-used and utilized a number of times and in different formats (video, text, images, viral).
Re-evaluate your content marketing strategies:
- How does your audience find your content?
- What type of media helps you optimize their experience?
- What will inspire your audience to take action?
- How will they feel about your product when they read your content? Will they take action?
Protect your site(s)
- Know to which sites you’re linked and whom have links on yours. You, (your product) is only as good as the site to which it is linked (sounds like something we’ve all heard from our parents!)
- Seek out only quality sites and marketing venues in which to link…even if their markets are smaller
Be creative
- Because you have only quality content you will have less content than others flooding your niche. Create content across other venues like sales, customer service, and associated markets. Use affiliates.
- Use a laser focus to pinpoint specific niches that compliment your own
- Optimize your content so that it can be used more than once in the buying cycle of your audience
- Keep it current and refreshed and relevant to your audience
- Be original, answer questions, offer definitions, provide valuable information, how-to’s.
- Invest time in making it awesome. If you really want a piece of content to be a resource to which your readers will refer again and again, don’t do it halfway.
- Use the social networks, multimedia, pics, vids.
- Become the ‘authority’ in your niche!
Don’t quit
There will be many out there that are quick to slam your niche with content from every source you can imagine.
Those marketing plans with volumes of content will be recognized for what they are and they will fade away.
Keep your product quality driven and evergreen…..
We’ll all be just fine.
Talk soon,
-Jonathan
Appreciate your notes, thank you.