Content Marketing is an Oxymoron

By Stu Leventhal - Author - Guru Marketing Tips

First off, calling people; customers, clients and prospective networking partners… traffic, unless they are in automobiles on a congested road or highway is insulting. “Let’s drive more traffic to our website.” Is not a wise business agenda, goal or well thought out commerce strategy. 

A business wants to speak to specific types of individuals; customers and potential clients, when they publish. They need to communicate with a specific, measurable, demographical niche, not some unknown, vague…traffic!

Specific audiences require specific marketing efforts, not some magical mystical thing labeled…Content.

Referring to online publishing or digital postings as ‘content marketing’ means nothing to anyone reading that phrase. Anything you publish or load up for display online can be considered content. Each type of, so called, content marketing comes in its own form; audio, video, photo, drawings, textual… All of these require different skills to be presented and launched properly. There are even different techie skills plus various software and hardware one needs, to be able to create, upload and then distribute each efficiently throughout cyberspace.

Companies seek to create an aura of what their company is like. One’s brand image is jeopardized by posting and publishing volume in chaotic forms and fashions, just to post as much stuff as quickly as possible. Quality beats volume!

You do not want to have the most videos on YouTube; you want to be known for the best videos in your field, category, industry...

You also want all of your marketing to coordinate and support each other, regardless of where it is, online or offline. Loads of publishing that is not top notch can hurt your business.  

Simply bulking everything a marketer can do online under one title ‘content marketing’ is ridiculous drivel. You would not call a photographer when you need to buy copywriting or a videographer when you need a brand jingle. Could a writer make you a nice video? Sure, probably but if you want the best things for your online audience to view and participate with then you hire the expert with the specific skills that you need for each post and publication.

Good publishing is posted where the right audience will find it. It is created for the stage that it is going on. Each different stage and every new audience has its own set of needs and desires.

To say you are investing in online ‘content marketing’ is way too vague. Stockholders would never buy that. One’s company board members would want to know what exactly the marketing plan is, what it includes, how much it costs, who does it target and what results are expected.

Content marketing is not a real pro marketing term and definitely an amateurish promotional method if it can be considered a method at all. Marketing concepts that work, go much deeper than just throwing up stuff called ‘content’ all over the net and hoping you somehow get some business out of it all.

Good Marketing of any kind requires research, testing, data analysis, psychiatry and artistic creative ability. Posting so called content without a well, thought through, plan that has specific goals in mind, wastes time and energy and it will burn up a lot of one’s marketing budget.

When someone says they can build your business with content marketing, tell them to put it into writing. You want to see exactly what you get for what price and what results are guaranteed. Then purchase it all individually from the real experts and specialists. Do not settle for hiring a Jack-of-all-Trades Marketer calling them self a 'content marketer' if you want your logo to be known for high quality.

Of course, disregard this advice if you wish your brand to be known for publishing ‘content’ and ‘content’ and more ‘content’…Or if you would rather just have lots of ‘traffic’ instead of actual new paying clients, customers and networking partners.

Folks, Marketing is business and there are no short cuts to the top. In our Age of Competition, publishing stuff called ‘content’ will not cut it! Neither will, calling the people who you wish to do business with…traffic!

Respect in the business, as in all arenas has to be earned.