Commentary
Why Brands Fail At Content
- by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, June 10, 2014
Why are brands struggling with their content strategies? Nicole Bohorad, Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing at Capital One, counted the ways on Tuesday. First off, “We’re not prepared to develop content,” she told attendees of MediaPost’s Content Marketing Insider Summit. (According to research cited by Bohorad, 70% of marketers lack a coherent content strategy.) Making matters worse, most brands are “not organized to manage content across their company,” Bohorad said. At Capital One, she said, a least six other teams are probably working on content at any given time, and the communication between those teams needs to be improved. “Tech tools” can help, she said, but they can also further complication matters. That’s because the tech tools marketplace is “confusing,” the reps selling those tools are very pushy, and most brands have limited resources to vet individual tools, Bohorad said. As a result, once brands commit to a particular tool, they’re too often missing necessary features, or they offer features that brands are paying for, but failing to exploit.
Gavin O'Malley edits MediaPost's Mobile Marketing Daily and MoBlog column. Follow him: @mp_gavin. You can reach Gavin at gavin@mediapost.com.
There is a very simple reason why brands are struggling with content, and that's because, from a consumer's point of view, they don't produce compelling content that is relevant.
Most content produced is very dull, and acts simply as a sales patter. From a consumer point of view, it's no better than an advert. Worse, probably, as it's longer and more boring.
Content needs to be relevant, interesting or useful, ideally inspiring, and very high-quality.
There isn't a shortage of content in the world, quite the opposite, so unless you have a very clear idea as to why a consumer is going to ignore everything else in the world for a short time in order to consume your content then you're wasting your time.
I completely agree with Gaerth. Content must be compelling, relevant and problem solving when appropriate. You have a contract with the consumer. They will invest their time and interest....you must deliver something they can use or you will never gain their attention with content again. That is the starting point with our clients.