Content marketing is dead! Just kidding. That’s not true at all. But it is becoming more difficult and more ineffective by the day. The reason? Many marketers out there are still following the same playbook from 5 years ago, but things have changed.
Like what?
Aside from the fact that every company ever is publishing content, there’s also the fact that two companies run the internet now. Look at the most popular websites/apps right now. The top 8 are owned by Google or Facebook. Those two want users to stay on their websites, and not go to yours. They actively take steps to keep users from visiting your website.
Don’t believe us? Just look at Facebook’s new algo and Google’s increased use of featured snippets.
So what can you do?
- Diversify. Content isn’t just blogging! It’s videos, podcasts, data reports, free tools, etc. It’s all of those, but that doesn’t mean you need all of those. Find what your audience likes and use that.
- Get over “owning” all your content. Remember when we said, “find what your audience likes and use that”? Live by that rule. If your audience likes LinkedIn, play by LinkedIn’s rules. Create posts that keep your audience on LinkedIn. They can still grow to love you, even if they don’t visit your website all the time.
- Re-calibrate your strategy between compounding, recurring, and experimental content channels. Compounding content is something like organic search, recurring is social media, and experimental is…well…experimental. Focus more on that recurring and experimental than you have in the past.
- Use content to go deep instead of wide. Forget trying to be Hubspot and controlling everything related to one industry. Instead, create the most in-depth about whatever you do.
- Look to the past. Print ads, billboards, direct mail are all seeing a resurgence. Maybe it’s time to revisit those.
There’s still a TON to read in this article…
