Here’s the truth: one of the worst pieces of advice for marketers is that there is a formula for successful content marketing. I know, for many of you out there, this doesn’t sound right and you might be preparing to personally slaughter me. But before you do that...hear me out.
Why Cookie Cutters Don’t Work
Let’s imagine a situation: a brand with a strong online and social media presence gets more sales through its ecommerce site rather than its brick-and-mortar store. Its rival brand is relatively less active online but garners more offline sales. Now, just because both the brands belong to the same industry, do you think they need to follow the same content marketing “formula?” Not really. But, more often than not, this is what happens. Brands follow some pre-set formula and hope to taste success with content marketing. It’s not surprising that these brands fail even before they have the chance to implement the strategy to its fullest.
This section from a Forbes article written last month by Sujan Patel really outlines the problem:
“One of the most frustrating things I hear from businesses who are adopting content marketing as a promotional strategy is that they feel the need to follow a formula laid out by some so-called expert – as if publishing exactly three blog posts a week, releasing one infographic a month and sharing them all on a few specific social networks will guarantee traffic and conversions.”
This mindset needs to change if you wish to gain true benefits from your content marketing efforts.
Quality is Paramount but so is Brand Personality
Modern content marketing is driven by a brand’s ability to create high utility content; another part of the brand experience is companies creating their own online personality. This means that content types and subject matter can vary from company to company. In fact, no two companies can ever be the same. Each have their own story, culture, and set of visions and objectives. So how can you expect a single strategy to work for more than one company? This type of cloning doesn’t make sense, nor does it show results. What it does is kill people’s faith in content marketing. No wonder marketers respond with, “Oh, that thing doesn’t work. We’ve tried that.”
What marketers often miss is that the whole purpose of content is to convey a brand’s values, messages, and actions – in one word, its personality - to its target audience. Today’s consumers seek a high-level of engagement with the brands that they like. They don’t like to think they are being sold to through a brand’s content. I hear many experts say that you have to write content loaded with keywords that very specifically addresses the needs of your audience. And to that I say, yes that can help; however, this approach lacks the warmth and the human side of connection that today’s customers are looking for in a brand.
In fact, many companies are doing better by weaving in human interest with their established audiences. If this didn't make sense, RedBull wouldn't create content of people snowboarding. It’s true that in content marketing, a lot depends on your goals and objectives; however, you can't ignore the importance of your brand having a personality. As we all know, no two personalities can be the same. If they did, they would be called clones.
While a content marketing “formula” may let your brand taste one fortuitous success, its impact can never be long-lasting. Brands with personality win customers, clones never do.
