Are you tired of reading about AI? Me too.

There’s a whole world of marketing disruption and opportunity to talk about, so let’s put GPT on pause for a moment and consider the State of the Nation and the 10 biggest marketing challenges.

One of the best parts of my job is interacting with business leaders of all types. I get a broad, global perspective of marketing issues from the very largest companies to solopreneurs and startups. And I certainly hear some common themes when it comes to the biggest marketing challenges.

Surprisingly, they have nothing to do with AI, at least not directly. Here’s what’s going on in the world from my perspective. These are NOT in any particular order.

1) Awareness

OK, I lied. This one IS in order — probably the biggest challenge we face today.

Marketers create customers. And to create customers, we must create awareness for our products. Rising above the noise to earn attention has never been more challenging. Media channels are fragmented and, as we see with TikTok, tentative!

Consumers have become their own streaming media entities. How do we get into those earbuds? And then you have AI swarming the media landscape. Sheesh. Marketing is hard. This is the time for audacity! 

2) From big campaigns to small acts of cultural relevance

A few years ago, Pepsi announced that the big brand “bonfires” were over. Brands had to connect to moments of cultural relevance. At the time, I wondered what that meant. But it became clear as brands became part of music, sports, fashion and leaned into emerging consumer signals.

Certainly, that is the direction of the marketing world right now, as brands try to capitalize on memes and trends instead of planning massive campaigns months in advance. A focus on cultural relevance requires an obsession with …

3) The Need for Speed

At 8:48 p.m. on February 03, 2013, a milestone event occurred that changed the face of marketing forever. The power went out at the Super Bowl. and in 10 minutes, Oreo launched an ad:

I remember being at a Super Bowl party  — there was a gasp in the room when the commercial ended. How did they do that?

The ad transcended all norms of advertising. The brilliance lay not only in the imagery but in the blazing speed of execution. This wasn’t a meticulously planned campaign — it was marketing at the speed of culture. The ad wasn’t just broadcast on TV; it also became a social media viral sensation and the company’s all-time most tweeted content. It was a global showcase of the potential of real-time marketing.

In the TikTok Era, a brand might have an hour to be relevant. There’s no time for planning or measurement. Many brands live in a reaction culture. This has massive implications for creative, resources, and legal approvals!

If the need for speed hasn’t transformed your marketing department, it will soon.

4) The Disconnected Customer

Many people, especially those under the age of 25, experience their entire media world by themselves through earbuds. They binge music, video, movies, and podcasts in an ad-free streaming environment. They play their games and socialize in Discord groups. They’re not visible to brands, and they don’t see the brands either, at least not like they used to.

A few years ago, I wrote a book about one solution to this dilemma: Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy. I was absolutely right about this trend. As I am writing this post, I’m attending the global thought leadership conference SXSW. The sessions on brands and communities are so hot that they had to create extra sessions. In the current marketing environment, this might be a hotter topic than AI.

Community is certainly one of the few options to earn your way past those earbuds!

5) Adjusting the marketing/advertising infrastructure

Quiz time.

You know without a doubt that word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) is the purest, most trusted form of marketing, right? It’s been around forever … but how much of your budget is devoted to WOMM? My guess is: ZERO.

How about brand community? How about experiential marketing? Also, probably zero.

There are lots of marketing options beyond Facebook ads and SEO but we’ve stayed in the familiar marketing trenches. If you have a contract with an ad agency they are probably resisting alternative forms of marketing because, well, they’re not ads. There is a legacy infrastructure in place that keeps us less effective and boring.

6) Navigating a world where one person can alter brand strategy

Life used to be so easy. A brand was what we said it was. Today, a brand is what we tell each other. And that can spin out of control.

The problem with our social media world today isn’t a matter of free speech, it’s a matter of amplification. A hundred years ago, if somebody spread a conspiracy theory, it would be unlikely to get any further than the boundaries of a neighborhood. But today, false information and deep fakes can reach millions if it comes from an influencer.

Our favorite brands have spent decades and millions of dollars building consumer connections. And all that can be ruined by somebody who is out to get you. It is certainly a weird world where our hard-earned brand marketing can be tarnished in a single post.

7) Activating influencer marketing

I was sitting at a table of brand managers, and one of them said, “Influencers are everything.” That’s a profound statement. But if you’ve followed this post so far, you can see how influencers fit into this new marketing world.

Influencers have massive, loyal audiences, and their message can cut through the earbud blockade. They can be counted on to react with speed, in the moment. In fact, day-to-day relevance is what makes them great. They are more than trusted — Their biggest fans consider them family.

I’ve been following the influencer marketing trend since its beginning, and I think the momentum will pick up going forward. While this is mainstream media for the biggest brands, most companies are just getting started.

8) Talent Acquisition and Skill Gaps

The rapid evolution of digital/influencer/meme marketing requires new skills in AI, analytics, and content creation. Finding and retaining top talent is increasingly difficult. Something I hear all the time: “There is no shortage of marketing jobs. There is a shortage of the right skills for those jobs.”

9) Proving ROI and Justifying Budgets

Marketing teams face increasing pressure to demonstrate clear ROI on campaigns. With long sales cycles and brand-building efforts, attributing revenue directly to marketing initiatives has always been challenging.

I think this is the greatest source of marketing stress. Your boss expects marketing to be coin-operated. Put coins in, get more coins out. But customers don’t operate that way and they don’t care about your quarterly revenue goals. Marketing takes patience and that is not a popular trait these days.

10) Global de-population

I bet you didn’t see that one coming. But this mega-trend will put a lot of pressure on marketers and their brands.

The global birthrate is nowhere near the replacement average of 2.1 births per family. In the U.S., for example, the rate is about 1.4 births per family. Almost every business depends on population growth for incremental annual sales gains. However, the population will inexorably decline in most developed nations, which has massive implications for sales and marketing.

The latest UN numbers show that 2040 will be the peak population on earth, just 15 years away. So, it’s coming at us quickly.

Well, on that happy note, I’ll conclude this post on non-AI marketing issues. You might be thinking, “Whew … that’s a lot.” But that’s exactly why I love marketing. It’s a field that is endlessly changing and endlessly fascinating.

I love solving hard problems and marketing has no lack of them!

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post The 10 biggest marketing challenges have nothing to do with AI appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

AI and search

New research shows that 27% of adults are using AI platforms for traditional search functions. I am getting about a dozen direct inquiries on my site from ChatGPT, and I’ve secured two customers through AI.

So, how is this going to work? It seems that Google is in trouble, but how can you bet against the world’s number-one search engine?

That’s the subject of the new episode of The Marketing Companion. I welcome a new co-host, Andy Crestodina, one of the premier digital marketing wizards around. Andy has some well-informed views of what is happening, what is likely, and how we need to think about search in the next few years.

We also delve into a topic that is a bit more controversial (believe it or not!) LinkedIn newsletters. Historically, I have not been a fan. You’re turning over your email list, SEO value, and perhaps even content discoverability to LinkedIn. And hey, who ever heard of a newsletter going viral?

But Andy has had some success in this area and presents a compelling case for the platform. An interesting debate!  To hear it all, simply click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 310

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this fantastic episode.

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This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Goodbye Google? Dissecting the role of AI and SEO appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

“The most human company wins.”

If I ever had something close to a “catch phrase,” it’s probably this. I use these words to end most of my speeches. It is the central theme of my Marketing Rebellion book. Of the millions of words I have written, this is the only phrase I have trademarked.

But I had to pause this week and wonder if it’s still true. The data is in, and it’s startling. AI isn’t just matching human empathy—it’s now exceeding it. What happens when the AI bots are more human than humans?

The empathetic bots

If you’ve immersed yourself in the world of AI (and I hope you have), you’ve witnessed the inexorable and explosive improvement of these systems on every level.

Recent breakthroughs show that AI can now reason through problems instead of just collating web data, demonstrating human-like logic. And now, AI can express empathy and understanding in a way that is more human than humans.

New research (first reported by Mike Kaput of the Artificial Intelligence Show) suggests that AI may not just match human empathy but, in some cases, exceed it. A team of researchers tested whether people could tell the difference between responses from GPT 4 versus licensed therapists when presented with therapy challenges. The participants struggled to tell AI from human responses, and when they were asked to rate them, they preferred the AI responses in key areas like empathy, therapeutic alliance, and cultural competence.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the AI therapist was more effective in producing results in a patient. In fact, there is evidence of harm coming from bot-therapists. However, the breakthrough idea is that AI can produce empathetic responses that are preferred over highly skilled professionals, and there are some interesting implications for that.

Is it real human emotion? No. But it doesn’t seem to matter.

The leap to the business world

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how scaling soft skills like this could provide immediate value in the corporate world.

Allstate, one of the largest insurers in the U. S., is using AI to generate nearly all its emails for communications about claims. The reason — responses from bots are less accusatory, use clearer language, and express more empathy than humans, according to the company.

Allstate is using ChatGPT to fuel the customer replies, while grounding them in company-specific terminology.

Implications for our human work

Some people have soothed themselves by hoping that we could never take real human empathy out of our jobs. But these developments show that extracting humans from a process can produce results that are more empathetic,  patient, kind … and profitable.

AI might represent perfect empathy. It never tires. It never judges. It maintains unwavering patience and understanding, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It can instantaneously access and process vast databases of human psychology, cultural contexts, and communication strategies. It can read micro-expressions better than humans, understand vocal tone with greater accuracy, and predict emotional responses with superior precision.

If a customer receives better care, feels more understood, and achieves better outcomes with AI, what possible value is there in knowing their customer service rep or account manager is a human who has “real” feelings?

The harsh truth is that in many cases, human empathy will become a liability. Organizations that cling to human-delivered empathy will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage, unable to match the consistent, scalable, and superior emotional intelligence offered by AI.

Right?

Does human empathy matter?

About 20 years ago, I went through the darkest time of my life, an episode I describe in Chapter 1 of my book KNOWN. I would not wish that experience on anyone, but I emerged with a new superpower.

When I meet somebody who is “below zero” in their life, I can look them in the eye and express empathy based on my own experience. It’s not perfect. I’m not a trained psychotherapist. But sometimes, the perfect empathy isn’t based on a database or interpreting micro-expressions. It’s messy. It comes from a hard, lived experience. It comes from scars.

When you’re just trying to get through life hour to hour, you need something more than a bot.

It’s a paradox. While AI can demonstrate behaviors that appear more consistently empathetic than humans, this very fact illuminates something profound about human nature and our future role in an AI-dominant world.

The human advantage isn’t in flawlessly executing empathetic responses — it’s in our capacity for genuine connection, especially when we’re imperfect. We can relate to others precisely because we share the messy reality of being human: we know what it means to struggle, to doubt, to sit in a dark corner and sob. Our empathy comes from going through an existential war, not AI pattern recognition.

What emerges isn’t a story of replacement for human empathy, but of evolution.

The most human company

Yes, the most human company still wins. But the most human company will be the one that thoughtfully blends AI’s reliable, empathetic responses with unique moments when we need our messy, vulnerable, beautiful, authentically human selves.

Those companies will recognize that while AI can handle the day-to-day empathetic heavy lifting, breakthrough human connections — those moments of real understanding, creativity, and growth — still require human hearts and minds.

One time, I had a coaching call with a young man who had a resume-writing service. This is a pretty boring product that has been commoditized. I struggled to help him find a meaningful niche where he could stand out.

“Why do you do this job?” I asked.

He became emotional and animated. “I see people every day who have not looked for a job in 20 or 30 years,” he said. “They are terrified. I know I can help them. I will hold their hand through this process. I will not let them down.”

I told him to record a video of himself saying exactly that and post it on the front of his website immediately. His humanity was his niche.

Sometimes, true human empathy is everything.

The most human company wins. Now and forever.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post When Robots Care More: The Evolution of Human Empathy appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

It was March 15, 2023, and I snapped a photo that changed my life. And I’ll explain how it can change your life, too.

On that date, I was attending the annual SXSW festival in Austin, TX, and enjoying a wonderful late-night meal with my friends Joseph Jaffe and Eric Qualman. Suddenly, people stood up and quietly walked out of the upscale restaurant. It was surreal, like being in a Stephen King movie!

My back was to the door. Where were these people going?

Nowhere. They stood on the sidewalk, pointing their smartphones to the big Texas sky. My friends and I had to see what was going on. So we left our hot food and walked outside.

It wasn’t an alien invasion, but it was close. A dazzling drone show lit up the heavens, telling the story of a new sci-fi television program coming to the Paramount Network. Hundreds of drones were programmed along custom flight paths to depict scenes from the show.

To top it off, the display ended with a sky-high QR code that sent viewers to a website with the show’s trailer.

While drone shows have become a staple of city celebrations and sporting events, this was novel—the first time we had seen such a display.

We all took a photo of the drone-ad to share with our social media audiences:

In that moment, the line between marketing and magic blurred. We weren’t just watching an ad; we were living inside one.

The mesmerizing advertisement became the epicenter of buzz at SXSW, and with more than 300,000 influential people in attendance, that’s a perfect place to make a rumble.

Now, we get to the interesting part. How did this photo change my life, and possibly yours?

The revelation

I’ve spent nearly two decades researching and writing about one crucial problem—how can our marketing messaging become the signal above the noise in a world of oversaturated content?

I witnessed one of the most astonishing examples of a brand becoming “the signal.” Every person in this restaurant abandoned their hot food and cold cocktails to stand on a street in Texas to see an ad—not just see it, but record it and share it with social media audiences worldwide. It wasn’t just a signal above the noise—it was a supernova.

Remarkable.

Unprecedented.

Perfect.

For weeks, I couldn’t get this drone show out of my head. I played this mind-game: If somebody gave me the challenge to create an ad so disruptive that people would leave their hot meals to see it, could I do it? No.

What was the lesson for businesses desperately wanting to be “the signal” to their customers? Was there a scalable process behind this brilliant idea that could guide breakthrough marketing strategies? Was this a clue to the future of creativity and our place in a world dominated by artificial intelligence? I became obsessed with this story in the sky.

One word kept pounding in my brain: Audacious.

Audacious! Is that what it takes to stand out in the world today?

Audacity as a strategy

AI is here. Nipping at the heels of our skillsets and jobs.

Being merely competent won’t cut it. Competence doesn’t create conversations. Competence is ignorable. But audacity? That’s the currency of attention in our overstimulated world.

What if the key to becoming “the signal” isn’t shouting louder, bending AI prompts, or spending more, but the simple human bravery it takes to be … a little nuts?

I discovered that Giant Spoon had created this viral sensation, an agency behind many of my favorite marketing success stories over the years.

I called Marc Simons, one of the agency co-founders, and asked him if he and his team would reveal all their creative secrets to me for a new book. “Absolutely,” he said. The opportunity was irresistible, a siren call to a marketing geek like me. I jumped on a plane to visit him in New York City, the beginning of a journey that included meetings with some of the greatest creative geniuses from around the world — and they all gave me their secrets!

They helped me answer this question: In a world where AI is overwhelming our content world, how do we fight back? How do we unleash the uniquely human fireworks of marketing creativity?

And today, my friends, please welcome one answer to this question:

The reveal

After more than two years of research and writing, I’d like you to meet my new book, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World.

So, you see how the story in the Austin sky truly changed the course of my life. But how does it change yours?

Whether you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, or business owner, you’re longing to be seen, to be heard, to be discovered, and that is more difficult than ever. How do you establish brand awareness in a world where content from bots already dominates more than half the internet?

Here’s a little movie preview of what’s in store for you with this book:

Filled with inspiring stories, hundreds of practical ideas (for businesses with any budget!), and all-new case studies, Audacious describes the essential human elements needed to:

• Disrupt the story narrative
• Disrupt where the story is told
• Disrupt show tells the story

Early readers of the book have been delighted, calling it “a masterpiece,” and “an essential path forward.” This will fill your head with ideas and your heart with hope. And, it’s a lot of fun!

You might have noticed that the book cover is a one-of-a-kind AR experience — the first book of its kind in the world! The cover will display abstract art based on the stories in the book!

Inside the book there is a puzzle, videos, and secret surprises. After all, a book named Audacious better be audacious, right?

Why did I spend all this time writing and publishing this book? I’m desperate to get my ideas out to you. I’m a teacher. I know that people need help navigating this overwhelming marketing world, and I have ideas that will help. I’ve spent thousands of hours bringing this to you and I know you will love it. This is my best work.

And this cool little book does not cost much money. Please order your copy today, and let me know how you like it!

CLICK HERE TO FIND AUDACIOUS ON SALE!

PS I also have an all-new speech to go with my book. This new talk was recently the highest-rated speech at a national marketing event, and I would love to bring it to your company or association. Drop me a line! 

Need a keynote speaker about brand communities? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The photo that changed my life (and maybe yours) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I recently saw this post on my social media stream from a fellow in Australia:

Dear Americans. You think everybody loves you. We don’t. We hate you.

I give this man credit for his efficiency. Offending 330 million people in 12 words.

But he inspired me to tell you a story about me and Russia. It changed my worldview and might provide some insight into hating people on social media …

I meet the Russians

About ten years ago, I was invited by a well-known European brand to provide a marketing workshop to their regional leaders. The conference would be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

I had been to Russia several times, but this was a period of particular tension. I worried about making it through passport control and customs. Would an American even be allowed into the country? My wife did not want me to go on the trip.

But my travel was fine, and when I immersed myself in the country and its people, I had a great time. In fact, I was welcomed with open arms and treated like a king. During my workshop, I made many new friends from Belarus, Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, and other nations in the region. I still keep in touch with them.

The city of Saint Petersburg was filled with ads for American movies and TV shows. American music blared from the taxicab radios. People were curious and eager to ask me questions about my country. They wanted to practice their English.

I’ve visited 79 different countries and spent significant time in places like China, Venezuela, Japan, and India, in addition to Russia. And here is what I found: people everywhere are just trying to get by. They love their children. They suffer, they celebrate, they like making new friends … even from America. People are people.

The source of hate

So why all the hate? Why would somebody hate Americans? Why do four in 10 Americans hate the Chinese? I propose that most of it is politics. Here is the most effective political strategy — create a common enemy.

In an article called “Inventing the Enemy,” UK author Charles Leon wrote:

“Trump is following a long line of world leaders who have sought to align our allegiances with theirs by inventing an enemy. He is a master at it and a master of the sound bite. Whether it’s the far left, the communists, the far right, or the Democrats in the USA; or the so-called “looney-left” or “champagne socialists,” they are the objects of our derision… and our unification. Enemies unite us in a common cause.

“Generally, we will assign lower status, physically and mentally, to our enemies. They are ugly, they have physical features that may be different from ours, even to the point of saying they are deformed, sub-human. They have immoral rituals, perform strange rites, and have different customs. We assign derogatory names to them. This type of language, and so much more, is used to confirm our collective unity, values, superiority, and status as a group — in effect our “tribe.”

In politics, hate is good for business.

Most of the time, hate for a nation or a group of people isn’t coming from the common people building their lives in those nations. It’s from a handful of politicians who must create enemies to survive.

The plan for hating people on social media

Let’s get back to this guy from Australia. I’ve visited this country four times and love it. I think if I had a few beers with this fellow at a beach barbecue, we would probably be great friends. I mean, why not?

Would he hate me? It seems impossible. I can understand why somebody would hate the politicians creating these divides and anger between our nations. But should you really hate me and my fellow Americans? Should you hate the people who live in China or Russia? Of course not.

So, the ultimate plan for hating people online is never to do it. We are positively connected in more ways than the issues that divide us.

The true problems

I want to be clear that I am not dismissing true political, economic, and military threats. There is overwhelming evidence of cyber attacks, political interference, and economic disruptions in the U.S. and many other countries. I’m sure America is engaging in some of this, too. That stuff, we should hate. But again, those problems are not being caused by those of us baking bread, fixing the plumbing, writing our blogs, and caring for our elderly parents every day.

To my friend in Australia, give us a chance. I think we would like you, and I think you would like us. Come stay with me for a few days. We’ll work it out.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney.

The post A handy guide to hating people on social media appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Last week, a friend asked me to review a new research report he compiled as a lead magnet for his business. But I knew his strategy was flawed before I even saw the report. I had to provide an email address to access the research. I didn’t want to become part of his email “lead nurturing” program, so I never downloaded the report. “Gated content” killed his content marketing strategy.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive. Most marketers point to the high cost of making exceptional content … Asking for an email address seems like a small price to pay for this value. But by making it difficult for people to access your content, you’re leaving the true value of your marketing on the table. I’ll explain why.

The current state of gated content

Here are some points to provide a perspective of our marketing world today.

• People hate gated content. Even marketers who gate their content know this. Research shows more than 90 percent of the people interested in the content abandon the sign-up process because they don’t trust what happens next to the email address.
• Many marketers justify gated content as a fair value exchange but research shows this is not true. Consumers state they are “resigned” to annoying marketing practices and more than half immediately unsubscribe to a site even after they opt-in.
• Acquiring email addresses in exchange for gated content may not be compliant with privacy laws in Europe and many U.S. states.
• We are clearly in an era of Content Shock where the competition for content views is vicious. One of the visible manifestations of this trend is BuzzSumo research showing how social shares on a topic decline precipitously as a subject becomes saturated. In other words, unless you are among the first to create content on a topic, getting your content to be seen and shared is extremely difficult.

A new content marketing philosophy

In my book The Content Code, I provide an updated view of content marketing strategy.

The philosophy behind the book revolves around the practical idea that the economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero. Therefore, we must develop competency in not just producing content but igniting it so that it is seen and shared by the most people possible. The most economic value of content marketing doesn’t come from the content, it come from the transmission of the content.

Creating great content is no longer the finish line; it is the starting line. The book outlines six possible strategies to remove barriers and give your content the best possible chance to flow and reach the most people possible.

Requiring people to provide an email address to access your content is about the worst thing you can do in this new view of “content success.” In essence, gated content places a stop sign in front of your content flow. It is an anachronistic way of thinking.

The value exchange

The decision to provide a barrier before your content must boil down to this: Are you going to receive more value from a trickle of people providing their email address, or the flood of people seeing and sharing the content freely? Let’s look at a case study to figure this out.

My friend James Carbary provided this example of how the gated content value exchange played out for his own business. He wrote:

“It took five months for us to get 295 people to sign up for the gated opt-in offer on our website. This progress seemed incredibly slow, so I tried something different.

“A couple weeks ago, I published a status update on LinkedIn explaining that I’d developed a list of 67 content topics that work well on that site. If people wanted the ideas, I asked them to leave a comment that said ‘I want it.’ Then I explained that I would turn the ideas into a free PDF if 100 people left a comment.

“In three hours I had over 150 comments. That post has now been viewed more 160,000 times, and 692 people left a comment saying they wanted the content ideas. We turned the ideas into a PDF, and replied to every comment with the link.

“In five days, my content spread to 692 people, compared to to 295 people in five months. We collected ZERO email addresses through the LinkedIn content but I’m beginning to see why un-gated content might be a smarter strategy.”

The case for amplification

James told me that the most tangible benefit of the ungated strategy was a connection with a high-potential customer and a podcast interview with this powerful new connection.

Some implied benefits in this un-gated content example would probably be easy to track down:

• Of the 692 people who asked for the content, how many were entirely new LinkedIn connections for James? He didn’t get an email address, but he did get a signal of interest and arguably these new LinkedIn connections might be more valuable in the long-term than an email address.
• How many of the 692 people responded to a call to action at the end of the report and visited a website, or organically subscribed to receive more content?
• How many shared the free content with more people inside and outside the company? How much additional flow did this receive because it was free?

Even if the percentage of people sharing content is the same whether it is gated or ungated, you will reach many more people with a base of fans numbering 692 versus 295. And that is happening in a matter of days versus months!

Finally, I shared James’s story, and linked to his website. I can’t recall ever linking to gated content that would require my readers to sign-in to something. So the benefit created by this post would have never happened if he hadn’t given his content away for free.

If you subscribe to my philosophy that the company that moves the most content will win, there is no question that un-gated content provides more potential value.

Branding and trust

I was discussing this issue with a colleague and she said “gated content annoys me. Why would a brand want to be annoying? The company is making me distrust them because I have no idea what will happen to that email address.”

A few years ago, I gave up my email address and (shudder) phone number to access a report from a company I loved and trusted. The next day, I was interrupted at a birthday party from a sales rep calling me from this company. My email was placed on lists for newsletters, webinars, and holiday sales.

Even after I “opted out,” of communications, I was still receiving phone calls and spam from this company.

By abusing me in this way, the company ruined its brand. It went from a company I loved to a brand I would never work with again.

A simple thought exercise: If you’re in a hotly-competitive field (like SEO or digital marketing) and one company has gated content and the other gives their best content away for free, which one will have a more positive brand view?

The research supports un-gated content

Roger Dooley is an expert in the field of neuroscience and marketing. In a post, he points out that from a psychological perspective, un-gated content is the undisputed content champ. Roger writes:

Requiring a user to give up his info before viewing good content is a reward strategy – give us your info, and we’ll reward you by letting you see our wonderful content. This is an appealing strategy at first glance – 100% of the people who use the content will have completed the form, and the information should be a powerful motivator for visitors to proceed.

In fact, most users confronted with a form won’t complete it. If they arrived at the site looking for some specific information, they will likely hit the back button and see if they can access it without the aggravation of form completion and without the risk of getting spammed later.

It turns out that a reciprocity strategy works better – give them the info they want, and then ask for their information. The research shows that twice as many visitors gave up their information if they were able to access the information first. It’s counterintuitive, perhaps, but even though these visitors were under no obligation to complete the form, they converted at double the rate of visitors seeing the “mandatory” form.

The neuromarketing takeaway here is that if you invoke reciprocity, you’ll be working with the way our brains are wired and will be more likely to get your visitors to do what you want them to. (And, as an added bonus, your SEO person will be happy that along with your visitors, Google will be able to see your content, too!)

Gated content and measurement

A compelling argument for gated content is measurement. Providing a tangible demonstration of the value of content marketing is difficult. It’s intoxicating to tell a client or your boss that an eBook (or whatever) resulted in a countable number of sign-ups that might be stretched into a claim of “leads.”

Measuring content marketing can be exceedingly hard. Most can’t do an adequate job. I acknowledge that gating your content may be the politically correct thing to do even if the strategy is flawed based on today’s market realities.

However, I think “social shares” is a more powerful measurement than “number of email addresses.” An email address may translate into … nothing. But a social share represents organic advocacy — better than any ad you could pay for.

An unpopular view

I’ve had many negative reactions to the idea of un-gating content. Here is one of them:

I think if you understand Funnels and the importance email still plays in the sales process then you wouldn’t have written this article. It’s not just about sharing good content — it’s also about turning your audience into customers. How do you do that when you never ask for an email address to move the relationship forward?  It’s all about moving folks through your customer journey. 

I would politely suggest this is an anachronistic view of a world that works in “funnels.” It’s not “your customer journey.” It’s THEIRS.

Most marketing today is not your marketing — it’s the sharing of information that’s going on without you. And if you have a gate, that clogs up the information you want to be shared. Let’s do the math and generously assume that 10% of the people who see your post will call for an appointment. We know that 90% of the people who come across your gate will go away. So for every 100 potential customers, you earn just 10 content views, and one call.

If I un-gate the content, I get 100 views and 10 calls. I am 10x more productive. Also, I have 100 people potentially SHARING my article instead of 10 for you.

By the way, what will you do after getting that email address? Spam your way to glory? That’s why people don’t trust gated content in the first place. You’re part of the problem.

I realize it’s a new way to think, but I can’t imagine a business today working hard to get customers to their site and then letting 90% of them walk away. If you ask people for an email AFTER they see the content, research shows it works better.

In any scenario, the numbers work in my favor, not yours.

A simple rule of thumb

One of the themes in my recent writing is that we have lost our way in marketing. Often, those setting the “standards” we follow aren’t marketers; they are SEO experts, statisticians, and IT professionals. I am not diminishing the worth of these resources, but maybe a statistical evaluation is not always the best guidepost for a marketing decision. Perhaps we need to get our heads out of dashboards and spreadsheets and look at what is happening with our customers in the real world.

Just because something seems favorable because of an A/B test or backlink strategy, it doesn’t mean we should do it … especially if people hate it.

So I’ll end this post with a simple piece of advice. People hate gated content. Don’t do things people hate.

Instead, dig deep to discover what your customers love. Now, go do that thing better than anybody else.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney.

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A common click-bait technique is to write a blog post with “The death of …” in the title. I’ve learned to ignore these, but I’ve seen such an avalanche of headlines with some version of “the end of brands” that it was time to comment. It’s not just a sensationally ridiculous idea, it’s a dangerous one.

I’d like to insert some common sense into the dialogue and explain why brands are more important than ever.

What is a brand?

Let’s take it from the top. A brand is an emotional expectation.

Here’s a little exercise I use in my classes: If I told you Coca-Cola was building a hotel in your city, could you imagine what it looks like?

Your mind immediately starts painting: Red velvet everywhere. Curved, flowing architecture like a bottle. A fountain in the lobby bubbling with happiness. The air smells like vanilla and spice. Even the receptionist’s smile sparkles.

You can see it, can’t you? Feel it? Hear it?

That’s a brand.

It’s not about sugar water. It’s about an emotional promise that’s so strong, so consistent, you could architect an entire building around it.

You can count on this “Coke feeling” in any circumstance, in any place. The trust in this consistency keeps that company at the top of your mind and maybe even at the top of your heart, almost everywhere in the world.

It doesn’t appeal to everyone, especially if you are health-conscious, for example. But the brand means something to enough people to make a difference, and make a profit.

There is no utilitarian advantage of a pair of 20-year-old Nike Air Jordans selling for thousands of dollars in Japan. There are better shoes, even pricier shoes. But this shoe makes us FEEL something and that makes it rise above the fray.

Creating this emotional shorthand isn’t easy. It’s like composing a symphony that plays in people’s hearts every time we see a logo.

But here’s why it’s worth it: When everyone else is competing on features and price, you’re competing on feelings.

And feelings? They’re priceless.

There are a few reasons critics claim brand marketing is in decline (or dead!). Let’s knock those down:

1. The Customer is in Control

One reason critics cite for the diminishing importance of brand marketing is the shift in power between businesses and consumers. In the past, brands held sway over public perception because they controlled the narrative through traditional media channels. Today, the internet has democratized influence, empowering consumers to control the narrative through their opinions, reviews, and posts.

I’ve written about this extensively, most notably in the book Marketing Rebellion, which suggests that nearly all the power to drive sales is in the hands of the customer. This doesn’t mean brand marketing is dead. It means that we can’t count on advertising any more. The new imperative is to create value and experiences so insanely great that people can’t wait to spread the word.

The Real Job of Brand Marketing Today:

1. Stop trying to control the narrative (you can’t)
2. Start creating experiences worth talking about
3. Give your customers something so amazing they become volunteer marketers

The customer is the brand marketer. How do we help them do the job?

2. The Rise of Performance Marketing

Over the past 25 years, performance marketing (SEO, targeted ads, etc) gained prominence over traditional brand marketing.  Businesses love how advanced analytics tools can track and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns in real-time. By comparison, assigning sales attribution to brand-building activities can be difficult or impossible.

Performance marketing is vital to many companies, especially early-stage companies that need to fill a pipeline and generate customers fast. But arguably, in the end, the brand is all you have to differentiate yourself.

In my book Audacious: How to Win in an AI Marketing World, I feature a case study on Liquid Death, the fastest-growing beverage in the world — a five-year-old startup! Founder Mike Cessario said:

“You’re only going to win with branding. You won’t win with some functional ingredients you can’t own. In that case, when you’re big enough, Coke or Pepsi or someone else will just produce the same thing—same ingredients, cheaper, more widely distributed, and then you lose. With water, there’s minimal, if any, functional difference between the brands. The difference is purely marketing. People want to walk around with this thing instead of that thing. None of the water brands were interesting. I did my homework. There was a huge opportunity to tell a different story.”

A successful company can’t stick with only performance marketing in the long-term. Building brand awareness powers long-term growth. When consumers recognize and trust your brand, performance ads become more effective. Case studies show that smart brand marketing can slash Customer Acquistion Cost by up to 70%.

Branding creates distance between you and your competitors, paving the way for future growth.

3. The Commoditization of Products and Services

Some say that the commoditization of many industries is killing brands.

Perhaps the poster child for this argument is Temu. Temu is an eCommerce company that ships generally non-branded, low-cost commodity products directly from Chinese factories. It is a company that has exploited digital technology and eCommerce psychology to the maximum and pioneered a new way to serve bargain basement shoppers.

Here’s the thing about Temu: They’re not killing brands. They’re just showing us what happens when price is the only story you need to tell.

There has always been a segment of consumers who love to hunt for bargains instead of brands for economic necessity or perhaps just for fun. Temu has digitized the treasure hunt.

Side note: I predict that at some point, Temu will create its own simple, reliable branded products, just as Amazon did. So, brand would matter, even in the commodity sphere.

4. Categories?

A recent exchange on LinkedIn offered an idea that creating “categories” is more important than brands.

Here’s an example: Dude Wipes. This company created a better, environmentally-sensitive way to wipe your rear. I literally never thought I would use those words in a blog post, but there you go.

Let’s break this down, from the bottom-up (pun intended)!

Dude Wipes didn’t just create a category — “premium man-focused bathroom hygiene.” They built a brand that makes guys feel okay about buying fancy toilet paper.

But creating a category without building a brand is like inventing a new sport and not telling anyone about the rules. Being first means nothing if you’re also forgotten first. Your brilliant new category is a sitting duck if you don’t wrap it in brand awareness. Your competitors are watching, waiting, and probably have deeper pockets than you do.

Look at what happened to:

• Friendster (created social networking, Facebook owned it)
• Zune (an early device to carry songs in a small device)
• Palm Pilot (invented PDAs, now a trivia question)

They all created categories. They all got steamrolled by brands that did it better.

Category without brand is silly.

5. The Impact of Social Media Influencers

Social media has fundamentally altered the way consumers interact with brands. Influencers, who often have more authentic connections with their followers, have emerged as powerful voices in the marketplace. Rather than relying on brand-created content, consumers turn to influencers for recommendations, reviews, and inspiration.

Hey … it’s still a BRAND! Whether it’s a person or a product, you’re still creating an emotional expectation. And the influencer is a lot more effective if their audience has heard of the brand!

Branding Forever

There is simply no rational argument for the declining importance of brand marketing. In fact, it is more important than ever, especially in an AI world. Here are a few quick takes:

• Branding alone creates differentiation in a crowded marketplace (like Liquid Death!)
• Brands are beacons of trust in a world of deep fakes and misinformation
• Branding isn’t replaced by “categories” or performance marketing. It enhances these initiatives.
• Loyalty to a brand enables consumer brand advocacy and influencer marketing.
• Brands and brand stories resonate across generations.
• In times of crisis, a well-established brand is better positioned to weather the storm.
• Brand trust and recognition is the fuel of international expansion.

In a world where anyone can make anything, brands are the difference between:

• Trust and uncertainty
• Loyalty and indifference
• Premium prices and commodity status

Declaring the death of brands isn’t just wrong — it’s like declaring the death of trust, loyalty, and human connection.

Need a keynote speaker about the future of marketing? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

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Jaguar has been an easy target for critics after the company re-branded itself with a foppish, silly ad and a strange new logo. However, I am not one of those critics. Today, I’ll explain why I’m the only marketer on earth defending the Jaguar strategy. In fact, they are on the only reasonable path for the brand.

Let me be clear that at this point, I am separating the ad/logo from the strategy. In fact, I hate the ad, which seems like an AI fever dream of what “creative” is supposed to be:

I also abhor the logo re-design because Jaguar had one of the coolest logos on the planet and they ruined it.

Why am I pro-Jaguar? Because I think the strategy is brilliant, even if the execution (so far) seems disastrous.

Why Jaguar needs a new strategy

Beyond the disdain of the brand creative, there are three main criticisms of the Jag re-brand:

1. Ignores a legacy of “Britishness” and performance / luxury
2. The ads didn’t feature a car
3. Targeting a creative customer base seems like nonsense.

Let’s break down each criticism:

1. Ignores a legacy of “Britishness” and performance/luxury

I would probably be considered a potential Jag customer. I have owned a luxury car for decades, primarily Audi or BMW. But I have never considered a Jag. In fact, I’ve never known a person in my life who has owned a Jaguar, which, in hindsight, seems remarkable.

Jaguar is not even in the top 10 of luxury car brands. In terms of market strength, it is a has-been, an unprofitable, forgotten also-ran. When was the last time anyone said, “Man, I can’t wait to get my hands on that new Jag!” Right. Probably somewhere between bell-bottoms and Beta video tapes.

In addition to style, research shows there are two big considerations when deciding among luxury cars: performance and maintenance costs.

How does Jaguar stack up? Automotive engineering is dominated by Germany, Japan, Italy, and America these days. To most, Jaguar means frequent break-downs and high maintenance costs. Am I rolling old tapes? Maybe. But that is the brand’s image and it would cost a lot to change people’s minds about that. Is the classic image of James Bond driving a British car relevant for young buyers today? Is it worth holding on to? Do you really want a mercurial British car as your first choice in a luxury car?

I put Jag in the same category as another recent brand rebel — Nutter Butter. Nutter Butter is Jaguar’s brand chaos soul mate — an also-ran in the cookie business with no strong brand meaning. Creating bizarre, unsettling TikTok videos upends cookie marketing tradition and any brand heritage. But who cares? Nobody was talking about Nutter Butter, and now they are.

Could Oreo go down this road? No. They’re the leading brand and have spent millions to develop “meaning” with its customers. BMW can’t suddenly start acting like a TikTok influencer on a sugar rush. Mercedes can’t go full re-brand gonzo. They’ve got too much to lose.

But Jag isn’t a leading brand. It’s a losing brand. So why not shake it up in a bold and conversational way? The content of the advertisement is a red herring. We’re looking at Jaguar for the first time in decades.

2. The ad didn’t feature cars

One of my favorite ad campaigns in recent years never featured a product. Never even mentions it.

A Chick-fil-A employee sits on a red couch with a customer and talks about how the employee met a special customer need. For example, an employee learned sign language to serve a customer who was deaf. Another bonded with a child who had a heart transplant.

What does this have to do with chicken sandwiches?

Brand marketing is about creating an emotional expectation between you and your customers.

To illustrate this in my speeches, I’ll ask the audience to shout out what they think of when I say “Coca-Cola.” Without exception, they say “polar bears.” There was the one time when a guy in the front row said “sadness,” but that’s a story for another day.

My point is that Coke has spent billions to move your mind away from brown sugar water to playful, happy Christmas bears. Coke is a feeling. 

Chick-fil-A has its critics, but it is more than fast food to its raving customers. It’s a warm and happy feeling reinforced by food-less commercials.

So I don’t dismiss the Jaguar ads just because they are car-free. Will you buy a luxury car for its engine dimensions and gas mileage or because it actually means something to you? Jaguar’s brand meaning before last weak was as thin as Earl Grey Tea.

Finally, let’s address the target market strategy, which is aimed at …

3. Designers and Creatives

Years ago, I worked on an influencer marketing project with a luxury automotive brand. The company was introducing a stylish new car and wanted to host events nationwide for social media titans.

But I found that every car company was going after the same small group of luxury car influencers. It was nearly impossible to get their attention. So I started researching adjacent demographic markets. What other categories of people talk a lot about cars?

I discovered two groups obsessed with cars: technology geeks and creative directors. That makes sense, right? Cars are about tech and style.

Tesla has probably cornered the market for techno geeks. But what car brand has a special and unique appeal to creatives? There isn’t one. I think Jag studied the market data long and hard and saw a seam they could own. Brilliant. Early feedback shows creatives applauding the brand.

And by the way, the “copy nothing” appeal to creatives is a direct line to the Jaguar brand heritage.

The holistic strategy

Jaguar prototype

An ad is not a strategy. A logo is not a strategy. So what else do we know about the re-brand?

• Jag has built a radical new electric car that will sell for roughly double the price of current Jaguar vehicles. The car is expected to debut soon at the Miami Art Show. In an interview with Automotive News, Jaguar Land Rover CEO Adrian Mardell said the still-secret Jaguar GT will make people “salivate” when they see its styling.
• They are targeting young, wealthy, design-minded people. After the internet / AI boom, there are a lot of young millionaires out there wanting to make their own statement.
• The new all-EV Jaguar cars will be positioned as “exuberant,” “modernist,” “compelling,” and all about “fearless creative.” The strategy is spearheaded by an experienced and respected auto brand marketer, Gerry McGovern. So this re-brand is not the whimsical idea from some GenZ agency. There is data and insight behind the strategy. By the way, McGovern already turned the Range Rover brand around. So I am willing to give him a pass on the ad fumble.
• The company is overhauling its dealership network which will also feature high-end art and cusine. That is a BOLD reinvention of the auto dealership.

Jag is re-imagining the whole automotive experience through the lens of the creative class. It’s ludicrous to judge the entire strategy based on one ad.

Let’s give it time.

I just finished writing a book about disruptive marketing (“Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World“). I see the underlying logic of what Jaguar is trying to do. Jag might be a competent brand. But competent doesn’t cut it. Competent = commodity. Competent doesn’t create conversations. My book explains how the world’s best creatives are breaking through the noise by disrupting the:

• Narrative
• Medium, where the story is told
• Who is telling the story

From what we know about the brand’s holistic strategy, Jag is completely upending the luxury car narrative. This is exactly what they need to do. 

The risk? There is none. You can’t kill what’s already dead. The only risk is continuing to be forgettable.

They’re in that sweet spot where “nothing to lose” meets “everything to gain.” They’re in the perfect position to pull a Nutter Butter — to be so outrageous, so unexpected, that people can’t help but notice.

The new car is supposed to be introduced in a few weeks. If it’s as sleek and cool as it is rumored to be, if the dealerships become something more than a place where people hate to shop, if Jaguar creates a story that truly connects with a creative class longing to be understood … Jag will be newly relevant.

Perhaps it’s already on the way. After all, when was the last time we spent this much time talking about Jaguar?

Exactly.

Update: Jaguar has now introduced the car. The first look:

Here is the introduction video:

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Jaguar

The post In defense of Jaguar (I think I’m the only one) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I recently saw a post touting the importance of a “timeless content marketing strategy. As I read the article, my response was, “Yes… but.” It occurred to me that there are many exceptions to the “rules,” and maybe it’s time to disrupt the traditional notion of content marketing. Let’s see if you agree.

Today I will repeat the elements described in a post as the timeless content marketing strategy and challenge conventional wisdom.

1) Define clear buyer personas.

Buyer personas can be very helpful in large, far-flung company with complex agency relationships. Having a target customer in mind can keep everyone on the same page and focused on content that serves the market.

However …

Creating content meant to serve made-up people can be stifling. Chances are, your closest competitors have drawn up the same personas. So you are all creating the same content for the same made-up people. There might be a small SEO advantage to this, but if you’re trying to break through the noise and create something worthy of attention, being a slave to personas simply creates a pandemic of dull.

Personas can be self-limiting in another way. In our fast-changing world, customers are evolving. Even long-held values and norms are changing. Focusing on one personality type, or even ten of them, can ignore new needs and new customers coming into the fold. In my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, there’s an interview with Kory Marchisotto, the CMO of e.l.f. cosmetics. She said:

“When I came into e.l.f., every marketing guru, every marketing advisor, everybody on my personal board of directors told me I had to create a customer persona. Every textbook said the same thing: ‘Go create a persona. Put e.l.f. in a box: Alpha is a person who carries this handbag, she does this thing, she shopped at this store.’

“And my gut instinct was to do a manual override. Creating personas just seemed so wrong for this brand. I was reading letters from 60-year-old women, 8-year-old kids, teenagers, and no one person is a ‘persona.’ We’ve taken a stand that e.l.f. is for every eye, lip and face. That is the lighthouse that guides us, and that is also an enormous responsibility.

“We don’t draw borders and boundaries around our customers.”

Think carefully about how personas can limit the creativity and reach of your content marketing. Don’t just follow the guru rules.

2) Develop a content calendar.

Again, this might be a good idea for the largest companies, especially if content requires lengthy legal approvals. But it also imposes two significant limits on content marketing effectiveness.

A few years ago, I was working with a healthcare company that followed a content calendar. But since they had their heads down in a prescribed content calendar, they were focused on National Pencil Day and missed a critical opportunity to comment on relevant legislation passed in their state. Don’t be so wedded to a content calendar that you never look up to see what’s happening in the world.

The second issue is the advantage of timeliness. Plenty of research shows how engagement on content topics degrades over time. For example, I wrote some of the first articles exploring how ChatGPT could be used in marketing. These posts attracted many shares, downloads, and comments. If I had published these ideas just two or three weeks later, they would be old news and far less effective.

Timeliness matters. Fresh ideas matter. To get the most traction for your posts, you need to jump on ideas early, which usually means abandoning whatever was prescribed on the content calendar.

3) Leverage SEO best practices.

In my digital marketing university classes, I explain that there are two high-level content marketing strategies: 1) win SEO or, 2) develop authority and earned subscribers.

What’s the chance I can own one of the top two search results for “digital marketing consultant?” This is a highly saturated field. Competitors have much deeper pockets than me. Just not going to happen.

But could I create content that serves people instead of algorithms and build a mailing list of people who are vitally interested in what I have to say? People who would hire me? I have an excellent chance of doing this.

Add to this issue zero-click Google results, the competition from AI search, and other complications, and it’s easy to conclude that for many companies, a focus on “authority” over “SEO best practices” makes more sense.

SEO gets you visitors. Authority gets you believers.

4) Use a mix of content formats.

This depends on the size of the company.

If you’re a large brand seeking an omnichannel presence and have the budget and agency relationships to do it, then yes.

But if you’re a small company, a startup, or a solopreneur, then absolutely no. To stand out today, you have to be great. And you don’t have the time and resources to be great in 10 places.

My recommendation to small businesses is to fish where the fish are and, at least at first, focus on one, or at the most two, content formats. If you decide on video, then double down on video and then triple down on it to earn your audience.

I’ve probably studied audience-building strategies more than anyone else earth. There are millions of tips and tricks, but there is only one strategy above them all. There is no close second. And that is, focus on quality. Everything else is just noise in fancy marketing pants.

You might trick somebody into clicking a link. But you can’t trick drive-by visitors into viewing your content or subscribing to it. You must earn that, and that only comes through quality. You can’t growth-hack your way to trust.

If you have any resources devoted to content marketing strategy, do NOT go wide by trying to be everywhere. Go deep and create unmissable, vital content that serves customers well in one way.

Stop trying to be everywhere and start being essential somewhere.

5) Regularly analyze and optimize.

I actually agree with this one, and this is historically a problem for many businesses. We are often so busy creating that we don’t dive into the numbers to learn, evolve, and grow.

History won’t help us predict the future. If you’re in marketing, you’re waking up to a new customer reality every day.

Data can help us learn about what connects to customers to help us serve them better, at least in the short-term.

Timeless content marketing strategy?

The biggest problem with being wedded to the “timeless marketing strategy” is that the more you’re obsessed with a persona, an SEO plan, or a calendar, the less you’re reacting to change.

Speed might be the biggest driver of marketing success today, but we don’t talk about it enough. A lot of the timeless marketing strategy ideas are handcuffs when you need to be responsive.

I’m also concerned that the word “quality” isn’t mentioned in this formula. Too many marketers are obsessed with the game. Stop chasing algorithms and start creating something worth following.

Sound about right?

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post It’s time to disrupt the “timeless content marketing strategy” appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.