According to Econsultancy, 60% of B2B marketers intend to increase their content marketing budgets next year. This is good news since my marketing agency, 60 Second Communications, is growing rapidly based on the interest many CMOs have in content marketing. But it might be bad news for you and for others if you don’t embrace this very important fact:
Anyone Who Thinks Content Marketing is a Silver Bullet is Setting Themselves Up for Failure.
The truth is that content marketing is important, but it’s not a silver bullet. It’s not going to replace your salesforce (despite what HubSpot implies). Nor is it going to replace the need for other forms of marketing.
Instead, content marketing will be a tool that you can use to 1) position your brand, 2) reduce your churn, 3) improve your customer satisfaction and 4) generate some leads.
In. That. Order.
HubSpot and other content marketing experts would have you believe that the order mentioned above would be reversed. In other words, they would tell you that the first (and primary) thing that content marketing will do for your business is to generate leads, easily and almost effortlessly.
Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case.
Don’t Get Me Wrong. I’m Not Saying Content Marketing is Bad.
The truth is that content marketing is a perfectly viable form of marketing, particularly when the tactics (e.g., blog posts, e-books, white papers, infographics, SlideShare decks, etc.) are part of a larger Wheel of Marketing.
The graphic below includes many of the elements a robust marketing program might use. I’ve laid them out in a series of spokes I call the Wheel of Marketing (your mileage may vary):
In an ideal world, a perfectly-balanced marketing program might use all of these tools equally. In fact, if you were to draw a line on each of the spokes based on your use of each tool and if you were to connect the lines, the result might look something like this (again, in an ideal world):
The problem is that we don’t live in an ideal world. Instead, we live in a world that’s anything but ideal. The result is that many of our Wheels of Marketing look more like this:
If your company’s Wheel of Marketing looks like the one above, you’re probably having a bumpy ride. Worse yet, that bumpy ride probably isn’t getting you the results you’re looking for. Unfortunately, you’re not alone — in fact, I’d suggest that most people’s Wheels of Marketing look like the one immediately above.
How to Fix the Problem.
The good news is that a broken Wheel of Marketing is easy to fix. Here are some things to consider as you’re exploring ways to improve the results of your overall marketing program.
- Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket. As mentioned, if you put all your eggs into one basket (be it content marketing or social media or mobile or anything), you’re setting yourself up for failure.
- Survey the Landscape. Take a look at what your competitors are doing. The odds are pretty good that they’ve make some mistakes along the way. Review their programs and adopt the things that seem like they might work for your business.
- Launch a Balanced Program. Nobody (except McDonald’s) has enough money to do all of the elements in the Wheel of Marketing, so don’t even try. Instead, pick an appropriate number of tactics and execute those tactics flawlessly.
- Test Your Way to Success. Once you’ve launched your program, test which elements are working and which ones aren’t. When one element proves to be a dud, eliminate it and move that money over to something that’s working.
By following the guidelines above, you’ll be able to set-up a program that breaks out of the Silver Bullet Syndrome, which is the belief that one thing will solve all your problems. Once you’ve broken out of the Silver Bullet Syndrome, you’ll be able to logically and effectively adjust your budget based on what’s working, not based on what you wish was working. And the results, my friend, should be much better than you’re currently getting.
Good luck! And keep me posted on how your program turns out.
P.S. Ready to take your Wheel of Marketing to the next level? Then read about The Safko Wheel, a supercharged version of the Wheel of Marketing, by reading out it on our blog.
Jamie Turner is the CEO of the 60 Second Marketer and 60 Second Communications, a marketing communications agency that works with well-known brands and organizations. He is the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile” and is a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.
View Comments (26)
I agree with you Jamie. Well pointed!
Although content marketing is definitely vital you shouldn't pull all the eggs in one basket.
Content marketing works the best when you are using it along with other marketing formats. It's a tool to communicate with your customers.
Thanks for your comments, Triin. Good to see you here again.
Cheers,
Jamie
Hi Jamie,
So that's where the name "turner box" came from *lol*. Yes thanks for the posts. Maybe some time you could to a post aimed at micro-businesses around what to prioritise (with regard to marketing) and how much time to spend on them? It can be a little bit overwhelming - especially for a one man band... Meantime, thanks for your great work. Cheers Cris
oops - didn't mean to upload my image just there ...
Hi Chris --
I love it! The World's Largest Turner Box! LOL.
Thanks for your kind words about the post. Regarding your question, yes, I'll try to do a post on that in the near future.
Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,
Jamie
Good points, enjoyed reading it. I agree what you don't need to put all in one basket, because to really enjoy results of content marketing you need to combine it with other activities, such as telemarketing (lead generation), search engine marketing and others.
Hi, Peter -- Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights. Much appreciated!
Great post Jamie
Thanks for setting the record straight on content marketing.
I think Hubspot and its followers understate the amount of time/effort it takes to generate organic leads with content marketing. And the leads you do get are largely information collectors.
Still content marketing is a good tactic for building your reputation as an authority in your field.
I agree 100% with everything you said, Bob. 1) That content marketing takes more time than we're led to believe, and 2) that it's still a good tactic for building a reputation.
You summed it up perfectly!
Great post. As a person who is fairly new to blogging and trying to make money online, I'm definitely finding this to be the case. Blogging alone is actually a very slow way to build your business.
Hi Robert -- It's definitely harder to make money online than many people would have you believe. Brian Clark has done a fabulous job making money online, but he's a certifiable genius. The rest of us are just trying to follow in his footsteps. LOL.
Thanks,
Jamie
Jamie,
Thanks for setting the record straight!! We use HubSpot and like their product but most "leads" we get are just info seekers/tire kickers. All the content gets your foot in the door but nothing like the phone and an appointment to make a sale.
Len
Hi Len -- I think a phone call is still one of the best things you can do. Many people disagree with me, but it's so unexpected these days that you can almost consider it a "secret weapon."
Thanks,
Jamie
I really like what
you have to say here Jamie! It was a great read and you really did quite a good
job of bringing to light many of the issues/misconceptions of social media.
Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked it! Feel free to share the post with your friends who you feel might benefit.
Thanks, Treb. Much appreciated.
Keep writing content like this so we content marketers can show it to our employers. Like you say here, content can be very powerful. But when the boss is reading the "silver bullet" pitch about content marketing (and nothing else), it's easy for them to inflate their expectations beyond realistic application. Content marketers often get the initial butt end of that dynamic, but it's the business owners who suffer the most in the end by over-investing in just one arm of the marketing strategy. More voices like this will help us negotiate that field of broken glass which is trying to tactfully enrich one's employer's perspective on how content marketing really fits into the bigger picture. Thanks for the post.
Thanks for the kind words, Justin. I think I'm going to write a post called The Truth About SEO next week. It'll be the same message (essentially) -- SEO is important, but if you try to game the system, you'll just shoot yourself in the foot.
Thanks again for the comment. It's good to get feedback from the community on what they like and what they don't like.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
This is fantastic! Thanks Jamie!
Glad you liked the post, Jenifer. I had a feeling it would resonate with you.
I'm going to do a similar post for Monday called The Truth About SEO That Nobody Else Will Tell You.
Stay tuned.
Cheers,
Jamie
Yes, the wheel of marketing is different for everyone. Great point. Knowing your target audience and testing (failing fast) will do more for you than chasing the latest shiny object.
Glad you liked the post, Keith. Check out today's post, too -- it's called The Truth About SEO That Nobody Else Will Tell You.
Thanks for stopping by!
-- Jamie
I love that wheel of marketing. Food for thought, (and something like pizza)
Thanks, Keith. And I love your use of the Turner Box around your profile photo. Bravo!
You started that! I remember now. Another great idea!
It's just the little things that help make a marketer stand out. I guess I've been following you for quite a while. Keep up the great work.
Thanks, Keith. There's a funny story behind calling it a Turner Box. There was a guy in the 1960s who invented the Johnson Box which is a direct mail technique. So, when I put a red box around my profile photo, I decided to call it a Turner Box in a blatant attempt at self-promotion. Hopefully, it'll catch on!
;-)
We don't want it to catch on too much - it will lose it's impact.
I've seen lime green and canary yellow boxes as facebook ads. Maybe some kind of colour classification by industry will develop. That would be cool.