Content Marketing is not equal to Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership Times Blog (Oct 14 2009)

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   Content Marketing is the newest trend for online marketers.  In fact, Seth Godin has gone so far as to say that "Content Marketing is the Only Marketing Left".
   
   If you are not familiar with content marketing, the concept is pretty simple.  Basically a brand will generate valuable content that will drive customers and prospects to action.  By contrast, proponents of content marketing say traditional marketing such as banner or TV advertisements provide little or no value to users and instead interrupt and potentially annoy users.  I agree with this assessment that content marketing done right can help organizations become thought leaders and influence consumers while providing legitimate value back to the consumer.
   
   As of late, many approaches to content marketing fall short of this goal because they do not offer valuable content back to the end customer.  Recently at the 2009 Inbound Marketing Summit in Foxboro, Massachusetts, I came across several companies that offer services under the banner of "content marketing" or "inbound marketing". Some of these were services where they would write content for your blog with the warranty that they would use specific industry terms and keywords in the posts for search engine optimization (SEO).  Similarly, other companies offered technology solutions that would help you author posts that contained specific industry terms and keywords for SEO gain and lead generation.
   
   However, the objective of the above approaches is to maximize the likelihood that a blog post will appear in a search result because it mentions a keyword or phrase. Content marketing, and, more broadly, inbound marketing has turned into Gobbledygook-ism as David Meerman Scott would call it -- just that the buzzwords are now industry specific instead of generalized.  As a result, consumers may find online properties easier, but at the end of the day there is no reason for them to build a lasting relationship with the content producer.   At best, consumers who stay around will only be rewarded with more keyword-laden gobbledygook. At the end of the day, consumers will treat such sites as just another corporate blog search result that they will only see once and drift away.
   
   In comparison, the objective of true content marketing is to deliver value to the end user and to influence the users over a period of time.   If you deliver value to your consumers, they will value you.  If they value you, you have the potential of influencing their thoughts, perspectives and actions in your favor.  If they value you, you will be a thought leader.
   
   If you want to establish your brand as a thought leader, here are a few questions to ask yourself as you think of content marketing:
   
   

   • Is my content marketing strategy focused on SEO or providing valuable insights to my consumers?
     
     
   • Do I need to my content marketing to just attract new consumers through search engines or also build a sustainable relationship?
     
     
   • What information and topics do my consumers value?
     
     
   • About what topic or focus area, do I want to be an online thought leader?

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