Welcome to Content Marketing is Dead

Recently, my CMO asked me about my career roadmap. What role or title am I looking for after senior content strategist? And I hesitated, because I didn’t know (and still don’t know). And I think that’s a good thing.

It means things within content marketing are in flux. In fact, I don’t believe that content should stand alone as its own function in most marketing departments. And I’d like to explain why.

1.  A Writer Is No Longer the Ideal Content Marketer

The word content used to be synonymous with text. At least in the world of marketing. Content marketers were writers. Dipping your toes into content marketing meant starting a blog. And search engine Optimization was dedicated to promoting text-based content.

That is no longer the case.

Today, content can mean videos, emails, live streams, podcasts or audio snippets, an interactive report, or a web page. For marketers, content is simply a deliverable we use to send out a message.

So what does this mean for the future of content marketers?

A content marketer should be an expert in which mediums best fit the need or goal.

A content marketer should be an expert in how to offer the same message in multiple formats.

Of course, we still need text specialists, video specialists, and so on. But when it comes to overall content strategy and what a content team is producing, text is no longer king. 

2. Most Content Is Digital Pollution

Most content that businesses produce does little to build positive brand recognition or increase revenue.

Want proof? Run any random Google search for a subject you know well, go to the second page of search results, and read through the titles. Click on one of them and scroll through the content. 

Pretty bad, right?

The problem is that most companies farm out their content to content specialists who know very little about the topic. Instead, they’re world-class Googlers and can create content briefs and blog posts that sound like everything else out there.

Nathan Collier calls this dumpster diving. I call it getting an A in being an imposter. (And no matter what you call it, it sounds a lot like what Chat GPT is producing). 

Full disclosure: I’ve done it. I’ve written many a post on subjects I have zero experience in. It’s also a content strategy I now advocate loudly against.

For years, content teams and agencies have gotten away with it because they can produce crap that still results in traffic to a website. And that’s all that companies have cared about: traffic.

Finally, companies are starting to catch on that a bunch of traffic isn’t the ultimate goal. They’re raising their expectations which is leading to changes in how we think of content marketing. 

Have you noticed the trend to talk about content that leads to conversions? This is as it should be. It’s a good start. But it’s just the start.

The other problem with content pollution? It makes it ten times harder to promote actual quality stuff. And marketing teams are scrambling to find new ways to create an impact.

Yes, we need to be bold and creative.

 We also need to stop putting out garbage.

3. Content Marketing Shouldn’t Be a Separate Function

Ok, hear me out content marketers …

Of course, companies need content creators. (And remember, I mean video creators, copywriters, long-form content writers, audio engineers, etc.) But when the strategy behind that content is created in separate meetings as the strategy behind customer marketing, demand gen, product marketing, customer marketing, and so on.

Content is a tool that enables a company to connect to its customers, to utilize partnerships, to send out examples of its brand, to promote its product, etc. When a content team sets its own goals separate from the goals of these other functions, two things happen:

1.     Competing priorities drawing from the same marketing budget.

2.    Sooooo many missed opportunities. 

What I’m really advocating for is more collaboration from the get-go and one strategy to rule them all.

4. Content Shouldn’t Be Separate From Brand

You’ll never spot the most egregious content mistakes your company has made. The potential customers you lost because of it are not around to tell you about it.

All that traffic that doesn’t convert? Some of them will leave your site with a positive or neutral opinion of your brand. And some of those folks will be back. That’s the best possible outcome.

But what about all of the prospects that leave your website thinking, “Wow, that company doesn’t get me at all!”

That’s when your content has failed.

To succeed, content should be led by a detailed understanding of a company’s:

• Product(s) and services 

• Culture

• Values and mission

• Goals and roadmap

And what does all of that add up to?

Brand.

I’m starting to think that the future of content is a happy merger with brand. Because a brand message cannot exist without content.