Great article by Michael W. McLaughlin on thought leadership (Is Your Thought Leadership Strategy a Waste of Time? via RainToday).
His point is basic but glossed over by many hyping this marketing tactic - that is content marketing (i.e., being recognized as a thought leader) is hard.
Michael notes that pumping content out to the market that does not address your customer's needs, is old thinking, has no call to action, and has no support for the assertions made is not only bad marketing, it's a waste of time.
Content marketing is all the rage now. Mercer Capital (the firm I work for) has been using this marketing tactic before it had a name, as have many professional services firms. We always called it educating our clients, referral sources, and our profession.
Twenty years ago, even ten years ago (that's how long we've been marketing with content), content marketing was much more effective than it is now. There are two primary reasons:1) the marketplace wasn't so crowded and 2) the internet was not being used as the powerful content delivery tool it is today.
This means you should read Michael's article and if you are using, or considering using, content marketing as a piece of your marketing plan, focus on producing quality content. It's hard. It's very hard. It's harder than it's likely ever been. But it's worth it if done correctly.
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Other content marketing sites you might be interest in are:
Numerous other websites discuss content marketing. For a list, download my whitepaper 25 Marketing Best Practices for Professional Service Firms. In it I list the 80 or so blogs I follow. Many of them might be of interest to you.
Also check out the book, Content Rules, by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.
I have to agree with you that content marketing is much effective before. Competition is cut-throat right now. One must have good content marketing strategy to pull it off. Michael's article is a must-read!
Posted by: Robert | October 12, 2011 at 07:33 PM