{"id":943,"date":"2013-11-25T14:22:21","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T22:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.showcasemarketing.com\/ideablog\/?p=943"},"modified":"2024-03-20T12:19:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T19:19:08","slug":"win-at-content-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.showcasemarketing.com\/ideablog\/win-at-content-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Behaviors to Win at Content Marketing Arms Races"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learn how to outsmart, rather than outspend, your competitors<\/h2>\n

\"AvoidI didn’t expect a simple blog comment to change my thinking about how to win at content marketing, but it did.<\/p>\n

As I was catching up on my Internet reading, I found Chris Brogan’s “Stop Making Content Just to Make It<\/a>.” Since I was swimming with content deliverables for multiple clients at that moment, I clicked. And read. And thought. And then I commented.<\/p>\n

My comment<\/a> lamented that industry practices run counter to Chris’ excellent advice. Increasingly, large marketing organizations are using simplistic content marketing measures like volume over meaningful measures like conversions<\/a>. And customer helpfulness\u2014that isn’t even in the discussion. What’s worse, the flawed strategies are inspiring similarly flawed responses from competitors, hence the arms race analogy.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t alone in my feeling. Tema Frank (\u200f@temafrank<\/a>) and others\u00a0joined in.\u00a0So I studied content marketing strategies further in search for a winning solution that avoids an arms race. Here’s what I learned.<\/p>\n

Content Marketing as Arms Race<\/h2>\n
\"Win

Source: Google Trends: “Content Marketing”<\/p><\/div>\n

Arms races begin when rivals seek advantage from investing in a new “weapon,” or to drop the military-speak, “tactic.” The idea of divesting the tactic while your rival continues to invest would lead to inferiority and possible annihilation. The result: both rivals invest at levels that ensure neither side gains an advantage. This is what game theorists call the “Prisoner’s Dilemma<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Content marketing fits this pattern for two reasons. Content Marketing drives down cost of sales. According to DemandMetric, Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads<\/a>.\u00a0Second, competitive spend levels for online content creation, digital marketing and social media is increasing. Forbes reported on \u00a0why 5 organizations \u00a0increased spending on content marketing<\/a>, but many other sources confirm the trend.<\/p>\n

Whether content marketing escalation is good or bad is the wrong question. Game theorists confirm the behavior is rational as a way to avoid annihilation.<\/p>\n

5 Behaviors That Will Help you Win at Content Marketing<\/h2>\n

So what is a savvy-marketer to do? Compete smarter. Here are five content marketing behaviors that are currently winning across the Internet:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Set Meaningful Success Metrics<\/strong> – Keep your eye on corporate goals like revenue or new customer acquisition rather than dozens of content-marketing-focused key performance indicators.<\/li>\n
  2. Understand your Audience<\/strong> – Knowing your audience makes it easier to focus creation efforts on meaningful, helpful and trust-building content. It also helps you invest wisely in qualified media buys.<\/li>\n
  3. Help, Empathize and Listen<\/strong> – Success may start with content, but it grows from follow-up communications. Whenever possible, follow up with people who consume your content.<\/li>\n
  4. Generate Content You Can Produce Well<\/strong> – Avoid the risk of undermining helpful content with poor production quality. Get good at writing, graphics and video production, if that’s what’s needed.<\/li>\n
  5. Invest for Success<\/strong> – Content isn’t free. Invest wisely at levels to achieve objectives. Strive to meet business goals, execution quality and effective follow-up to avoid losing on budget size.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In future posts, I’ll provide additional detail about each of the recommended behaviors.<\/p>\n

    My thinking, and perhaps others’ thinking, is still evolving on this subject. Please add to discussion by adding your comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Learn how to outsmart, rather than outspend, your competitors I didn’t expect a simple blog comment to change my thinking about how to win at content marketing, but it did. As I was catching up on my Internet reading, I found Chris Brogan’s “Stop Making Content Just to Make It.” Since I was swimming with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-persuasion","category-marketing-2"],"yoast_head":"\n5 Behaviors to Win at Content Marketing Arms Races | Bill Freedman's Soon to be a Major Trend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A simple blog comment changed my views about how to win at content marketing. 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