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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.