Embrace content marketing or fall behind your competitors

Despite its growing popularity, there are still too many businesses who flatly refuse to embrace and invest in content marketing.

There was a moment at Altitude Advisory a few week ago during a marketing meeting with partners of the business that will live long in the memory for me, for one very specific reason.

Whilst reviewing the marketing strategy for the 2018/19 financial year, the conversation swung to where the priorities should be over the next 12 months.

The answer from this particular partner was direct and unequivocal: “It’s really simple as far as I’m concerned. It’s content, content, content.”

It may not seem like a particularly surprising comment given how widely used content marketing is now. But for me, it was a watershed moment.

Content marketing: The detractors

In my several years as a disciple of the church of content marketing, I’ve lost count of how many conversations I’ve had with directors of professional services firms who simply won’t entertain the idea that content is the here, now and future of marketing.

“How does a blog win me business?”

“We’re a professional firm, we can’t be on Facebook.”

“We run newspaper ads, that’s what wins us business.”

“How can we sell ourselves if we’re not talking about services?”

You name it, I’ve heard it. Hundreds of different objections to the idea that maybe – just maybe – trying something different might yield results.

But here, in an Adelaide boardroom, on a Wednesday evening, was a director of a professional services business telling me – completely unprompted – that content should be the central element of our marketing strategy.

I didn’t have to handle objections or sell the idea. That one uttered sentence proves how far content marketing has come in a relatively short space of time.

Of course, Altitude Advisory is a progressive and innovative business so it’s perhaps no surprise that the company has been a relatively early adopter. But regardless, it was incredibly refreshing to hear the owner of a professional services firm give his approval to content marketing with such zeal.

Huge potential

The crux is that there are still far too many businesses that are stuck in their old ways and that fail to see the huge potential in content marketing.

That creates an opportunity for the businesses that are willing to give it a go. Whatever industry you’re in, I urge you to look at your competitors and see if they are leveraging content marketing.

I’d bet my last dollar that many – perhaps even most of them – are not.

You can choose to ignore the facts about content marketing and continue to do what you do, whether it’s a success or not, or you could embrace a marketing strategy that is fast becoming the only way to build trust in existing and potential customers.

John Durrant is the Marketing Manager at Hub39  – a group of professional services firms, including Altitude Advisory, based in Norwood.