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| Content or just crap? |
When I was a small boy, my grandmother used to recite a phrase to us, when
any of her excitable grandchildren were talking too much or spinning a tall
tale as small children do. She used to say, “if you have nothing useful to say,
its better to say nothing.”
Wise words that in my view and something that the content management
world might like to consider.
I’ve spent the last few months deliberately subscribing to
newsletters from a broad range of business to business vendors that are using a
content management approach to generate awareness, interest and sales leads.
The one thing that stands out a mile is quality. It may just be me,
but it feels to me that an awful lot of the companies I have subscribed to are
generating a vast amount of content of which very little has either any depth
or quality. It honestly feels, to paraphrase an old saying that they are just
chucking as much crap as they can at the wall and hoping that some of it sticks.
On the basis that content marketing is all about demonstrating
expertise among other things in order to be seen as a credible provider of a
product or solution, then isn’t it wiser to assume that quality is more
valuable than quantity.
To illustrate what I mean, of the 25 companies I subscribed to:
- 60% send out something at least 3 times a week and often more.
- 24% send out something at least once a week.
- The remainder only send out something when they have something of value to say
The interesting thing, for me at least, is that the companies that
are bombarding me several times a week with papers, opinions, blogs and other
forms of communication are the ones I will be unsubscribing from now that I
have published this blog article. The primary reason being that even with a big
team of content experts, not even the busiest companies in the world will have
that much to say without reducing quality in favour of volume. As a result an awful lot of what they are sending me is just rubbish without any clear purpose other than to fill up my inbox.
On the other hand the small group of companies that only communicate
when they have something of value to say, are the ones I will continue to
subscribe to because when they communicate with me, it is of value and relevant
to me.
For me it all goes back to that point my grandmother made, but
perhaps put in a more positive way – When you have something useful and valuable
to communicate to your customers, make sure you do, but don’t waste their time
when you don’t.
As always folks it would be great to hear your thoughts on this blog and any experiences you think are relevant.
