B2C Marketers Make the Mistake of Treating Content Marketing as a Project [New Research]
Rita Gunther McGrath demonstrates how all competitive advantages are ephemeral in her book The End of Competitive Advantage. Everyone, she claims, is aware of that. So why hasn’t the application of basic strategy changed?
Most executives continue to use strategy frameworks and techniques intended for attaining a lasting competitive advantage rather than for quickly exploiting and moving in and out of advantages, even after realizing that competitive advantages will be transient.
After dealing with hundreds of enterprise brands over the past ten years, that last statement really hits home. The majority of firms consider how they may alter content to better serve marketing objectives rather than how they might alter marketing to better serve content objectives.
What’s this? Because all content assets are easily duplicable and, at most, only have temporary distinct value, your content will never be a durable competitive advantage or differentiator.
It’s time to feed the content giant that awoke last year, according to the recently released Content Marketing Institute/Marketing Profs B2C Content Marketing Benchmark, Budgets, and Trends – Insights for 2023. But be careful not to become too preoccupied with the cuisine that you eventually stop cooking regularly. Content marketers all too frequently focus on producing content rather than developing the skills necessary to produce consistently.
The creation of content should be strategic.
Consider content operations as the force that may transform all of your issues with content marketing. You should be aware that the things you do provide you a competitive advantage. Success depends on a team’s capacity to be dynamic and fluid, moving in and out of content “arenas” (as Rita refers to them in her book) and gaining short-term advantages.
Branding secrets that successful companies know that most do not.
The key takeaway is to ask everyone in your company, including the CEO, if they think that dynamic, useful, appealing content-driven experiences will advance the company.
If the answer is yes, then your capacity to adapt and organize all the operations to consistently produce those content-driven experiences is where the strategic value lies. It is not related to the content or the strategies for delivery. The goal of your team should be to support the company’s ability to produce quality content, not to excel at it yourself.
According to @Robert Rose via Twitter, the strategic value of #ContentMarketing is in the capacity to consistently create content-driven experiences.
Real challenges exist for the content marketing approach.
Content marketing is still vital.
Seventy percent of B2C marketers told us that over the past year, content marketing has become more crucial to their business. (Only 4% of people feel it is less important.)
B2C Content Marketing’s Importance in the Past Year
More resources are required as something becomes more significant. They respond that they would like more people, more funding, and greater access to subject matter experts when asked what they would alter about content marketing in their company.
According to @CMIContent #study via @Robert Rose, 70% of #B2C marketers think #ContentMarketing is more essential in their organization than it was last year
Yet, content marketing is more crucial than ever, yet content marketers find it difficult to meet demand.
Why?
since so many companies view content marketing as an endeavor centered on campaigns and projects that calls for various “assets.” Because they are producing so much content, content marketers haven’t figured out how to turn their work into a repeatable, consistent, and scalable process.
57% of B2C marketers cite developing content that appeals to various target audiences as one of their major issues in content marketing. Developing measurement consistency (44%) and distinguishing our goods/services from the competition (40%), which complete the top three.
Current Content Marketing Challenges for B2C Organizations
According to @CMIContent #study via @Robert Rose, 57% of #B2C marketers think it is difficult to produce content that appeals to various target audiences.
The key to overcoming each of these issues is strategic content operations, which include establishing a constant long-term strategy for differentiating, creating a measuring plan that endures over time, and scaling to accommodate various audiences. However, few marketers intend to hire assistance to deal with those difficulties. Nearly half (45%) said they would seek to develop writers, designers, photographers, and videographers among the resources they aim to hire or contract in the upcoming year.
It’s comparable to attempting to build a larger house by merely using more bricks.
In the upcoming year, content creators are expected to be hired by 45% of B2C marketers. According to @Robert Rose via @CMIContent #study, that would be like creating a larger house by including more bricks.
However, B2C content marketing is effective.
Talented practitioners succeed in spite of obstacles. B2C marketers generally rate their success as moderately, very, or extremely successful, according to 81% of them. Only 2% of people claim to have had “not at all” success.
How B2C Marketers Assess the Overall Level of Content Marketing Success at Their Organization Over the Past 12 Months
Moreover, 86% of respondents claim that content marketing offers a “meaningful/purposeful career path.”
The information found in CMI’s Content Marketing Career & Salary 2023 Outlook is consistent with these findings (registration required). Our research revealed that while content marketers are generally content in their current positions, they would be even happier if their companies gave content marketing a higher priority, supported it with strategies and resources, and invested in technologies to make their jobs easier and more effective.
The last positive development? The majority of content marketers (73%) anticipate that their company will continue to invest the same amount of money or more this year. Only 3% of people think it will go down.
Different, not more effective, activities
The B2C study offers some intriguing perspectives on the top priorities for 2023:
Businesses need to cease building new marketing teams and scaling them based on platforms, technology, or inside-out perspectives of the customer journey. The structure and positioning of those experiences across various platforms will always be time-based. Success comes when a company masters the art of managing and operating a wide range of content-driven experiences.
Businesses must cease viewing content as a mere “container,” intended only to support marketing strategies or approaches. Success comes when a company acknowledges content operations as a function, enabling the flexible application of content to enable improved customer experiences.
When one method no longer works, businesses cannot simply say, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” Success occurs when the company is able to detach in a healthy way and scrap initiatives that aren’t working. They are able to manage portfolios of content-driven experiences and constantly reconfigure their activities.
Establishing the incorrect foundation seems to be the main error of judgement!
When you hear, “How can we get more efficient at content?” it’s frequently the first indication that a content marketing strategy is having problems.
Efficiency entails making adjustments to a procedure to reduce friction. The inquiry frequently presupposes that there is already a useful, standard operation in place. However, efficiency ultimately refers to creating the same amount of information or more with the same amount of resources if there is no repeatable standard procedure.
Rarely does that turn out to be better for the company.
The most challenging work for content marketers is to identify the distinct actions to carry out differently and to ascertain the different activities required to establish or enhance the processes.
Your original content offers no enduring competitive commercial advantage. However, a well-planned content strategy really might.
