Common Content Marketing Myths and Crazy Yeti Sightings

As a business person or marketing professional you hear a lot about how social media strategies are changing the word-of-mouth advertising game and how “effective SEO” has really gone back to its white-hat, content marketing roots. Despite all of the chatter, many companies fail to buy in to using content marketing because they either 1) simply don’t understand what content marketing is, or 2) are falling victim to a number of content marketing myths that keep too many companies from using this powerful marketing strategy. Let’s take a look at two of the more common misconceptions. 1. My company’s core audience doesn’t use social media or read a lot of online content. Riiiiight. Guess how many total users are on the the five most popular social networking sites. Almost 2 billion! Most likely, a good number of your target audience can be found somewhere online. Two of the more recent conversations I have had along these lines went something like this… “But my audience is made up of executives and other busy professionals not teenagers”… The Financial Times recently conducted a survey showing that nearly 6 in 10 executives use social networking sites. “But my product is for kids”… 90% of moms say they are online, 78% of women say they search the Internet for product information before making a purchase, and you do know who buys stuff for kids, right? 2. We can’t afford to spend marketing dollars producing content that is not all about our company and its products. If you’re thinking that most content marketing strategies don’t look a whole lot like traditional product descriptions and direct mailers you are right. But, if you’re thinking that it simply can’t be smart to create content that doesn’t look and sound like an advertisement you are wrong. Many businesses have a hard time seeing how content that is not all about product features, unique selling positions, and company testimonials can generate a return on investment. But, what if these same businesses understood that you can create content that would interest your target audience, pulling them into your website, bringing them into contact with your social media profiles, and engaging them in discussions about things related to your business? Would that kind of content generate a return on investment? Absolutely. Many companies only track Analytics to the last click when reporting a conversion. Of course the problem with only looking at the last click is that most individuals have many contacts with a brand before eventually purchasing an item. As a marketing student in college, I was taught that a person will need to interact with your company seven times before becoming a customer – “The Rule of 7”. More recently, Google research shows that the average shopper interacts with more than 10 sources of information before buying. Every interaction you can get with a potential customer counts. Consistent and stimulating content that is even pseudo-related to your brand provides countless opportunities to engage, educate, and eventually sell something! These two myths are really just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless other common misconceptions like only women use Pinterest (ok, something like 80% of Pinterest users are women but that is a pretty funny page), infographics are dead, and at least three others myths we dispel in our Content Marketing Myths PDF. Content Marketing Myths I’d love to hear about other common content marketing myths you all come across and how you respond when concerns arise. And oops, I almost forgot about the Yeti sightings… sorry big fella’! Here are a few of my favorites and you can find several other bizarre yet classic Yeti sightings in our PDF above —
  • In 2005, a video clip shot in Kentucky apparently shows a juvenile Bigfoot feeding on pancakes!
  • In 2009, a Yeti-like creature was filmed for 3 seconds along the border of Monglia. The creature had a uniform color, a coned head, long arms, and male pattern baldness!
So, if you have ever 1) dispelled a content marketing myth or 2) seen a yeti, please leave a comment!

8 thoughts on “Common Content Marketing Myths and Crazy Yeti Sightings

  1. Anton Koekemoer says:

    Hi David,

    Yes – I do agree. Pinerest has a large amount of female visitors –but is not
    inclusively for females. And yes, Especially when businesses is new to
    marketing digitally ,yes – content marketing takes a lot of resources but if
    done right , the amount of ROI (Return on investment) can be worth all your
    troubles and can increase the amount of targeted exposure and traffic to your
    website dramatically.

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