Yes, most marketers have “discovered” content marketing.  The theory is that if you put more content out there, prospects (clients, job candidates, members, etc) will find it, self-identify, and then beat a path to your doorstep.

The benefits of investing in content are legion: an easier education and sales process, better quality leads, better conversion rates, reduced cost of sales, and a group of engaged ambassadors who willingly spread your good word throughout their networks.  So with so many benefits, an organization would have to be foolish not to invest in content, and invest in it significantly.  So they do.

Unfortunately, many of these benefits are never delivered – and the reason is clear:  Content in and of itself has zero value.  Content only has value as a tool to help the target user achieve a goal or solve a problem.  To build a viable content marketing program requires three elements:  Relevance, Relationships, and Results.

1. Relevance to the audience:  The right content must be available for the right audience in the right format at the right time.  If the audience feels the content is irrelevant, it will see the organization as… irrelevant.  If the quality is poor, it will see the organization as poor.  And so on.  A common mistake: content is created that is important to the sponsoring organization – and not the audience: this is a sure-fire interest-killer.
2. Relationships:  The underlying goal of any content marketing program is to build a trust relationship with the target user.  The relationship moves from awareness, to preference, to trial, and ultimately commitment. For this reason, the goal of each content piece (howsoever delivered), must also be aligned to these four Trust Curve stages.  This blog post, for example, achieves the goal of awareness (in case you discovered this from an email link or Google search) as well as preference (since reading many posts builds affinity and trust.)
3. Results:  If the goal is to deliver results by improving relationships, how do you know when you are successful?  Or if you are producing the right content?  Measuring engagement and conversion allows for important mid-course corrections, and a more aligned content strategy.

In a certain sense, content marketing is like a magnet.  When done well it serves to attract, but when done poorly – by not following these three R’s – content yields the exact opposite effect.  It diminishes the brand.

So is content dead?  Dead content is dead, but relevant content that builds relationships and delivers results is alive and well.

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