Digital marketing challenges: Marketers fail on content creation

WARC, 3 April 2014

SYDNEY: Marketers are failing to create content because they don't take responsibility for it and hide behind the excuse they haven't got enough time, a leading industry figure has said.

Addressing delegates at the Content Marketing World event in Sydney, Robert Rose, chief strategist at the Content Marketing Institute, said that far too often content creation was being outsourced to third parties who turned in unoriginal material.

"Marketing is changing, but we are not – we still create content in the same way, which is to say we don't," he said, in remarks reported by AdNews.

"The problem is," he continued, "we don't know how because we are not given the responsibility to create the content."

He suggested that marketers should follow the example of agencies in setting aside time for ideation. "Spend at least 10% of your time creating content," he advised.

He acknowledged that businesses could sometimes feel guilty about doing this but argued that it should be part of the corporate culture and be driven by CMOs.

"Start thinking about why you are creating content," he said, "and then build content out one network at a time. That thing you've been doing for an hour on a Friday because you have to suddenly becomes the thing you are doing every day."

He offered four approaches to content creation: promoter content, such as a company website; preacher content, such as blogs and social media; professor content was thought leadership material; and content that created an emotional connection between brand and consumer.

A recent Warc Trends report, The Content Revolution, addressed some of the issues raised by Rose, including the widespread lack of formal strategies and the need to revise internal structures.

But rather than place all the burden of creation on marketers, it also explored how user generated content could best be employed and how brands could partner with professional content creators and act as 'enablers'.

Data sourced from AdNews; additional content by Warc staff

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