The truest form of content marketing gives
I was reading a quasi-press release recently. It was from a marketing company talking about their relationship with a new client. It started off fine, as it talked about the other business—but it quickly turned. It wasn’t about the other business at all. It was self-promotion, nothing but self-promotion, disguised as something else.
In sales, there is a time to ask for business. There is a time to ask for buy-in. There is a time to mention what you do. But you need the other companies you work with to trust that you’re really on their side. That doesn’t happen when you use your clients as just another opportunity to talk about yourself.
The truest form of content marketing is giving. That article I read was the opposite.
I probably sound frustrated—I am. The two businesses we are in, insurance and marketing, both have bad raps. And guess what? It’s for good reason. I’ve seen so many insurance agents and insurance carriers try to screw the client. I’ve seen so many marketing “gurus” rip people off, trash-talking everybody else but not really providing value. All these people hurt the industries they represent.
Many of our clients come to us so suspicious of marketing support, they’re not even sure they want to hire us, all because of bad episodes with other companies. We have seen a business spend $250,000 and receive basically nothing for it, nothing besides a horrendous website, bad social media support, and the bad PR they got because of some political tweet.
The marketing industry needs more of the “truest form of content marketing”.
The whole point of content marketing is to produce content that the audience wants, instead of interrupting the content they want with an ad they can’t avoid, like in a lot of traditional advertising. Now, people can avoid the ads, so if you want to get your message out there, you have to do something different. Sure, you can hoodwink the audience into thinking they’re going to get what they want, then hit them with something else instead, but that just proves the naysayers right. That’s not real content marketing,
The truest form of content marketing gives, gives to the client and gives to the audience, and gives for real—value, ideas, information, a story, a gift, entertainment, something. Then, with the attention you gather from a good post, make an ask. After all, marketing leads to sales. But you have to earn that trust first.
You have to be trustworthy.
Want to discuss this topic further? Let’s chat.
We believe a podcast has the potential to be a true form of content marketing. So we created one. Listen to it on Apple iTunes.