Joe Pulizzi has just published the latest top Content Marketing blogs (see Junta42 Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs). Clearly there are a lot of blogs I should be following!
What struck me is his announcement that this is the last time he’ll be publishing this list. Says Joe: “Today, content marketing is the dominant phrase for the creation and distribution of compelling and relevant content to attract and/or retain customers.”
Yes, more people now know what ‘content marketing’ is – and they know they should be doing it.And there are literally hundreds of good bloggers out there offering guidance. (The Junta42 list includes more than 400 of them!)
So, the blogosphere and the social media consultants and agencies all ‘get it.’
Why, then, does it seem like sometimes I’m talking to a brick wall?
Content what?
Actually, I am thinking of taking ‘content marketing consultant’ off my business card because of the blank stares I get. Even working with technology companies that clearly invest in their marketing initiatives, people don’t really think “Gee, I need me some content marketing.”
Instead, they call me when they say “I need a lead generation campaign – let’s create some information-rich whitepapers.” Or, “I need to create some credibility with our prospects, let’s do a webinar series and some articles, maybe a blog.” If I asked many of them to see their “content marketing plan,” they’d mumble something about working on that, or maybe next quarter. Or they would just look at me blankly.
Of course this isn’t true of everyone. Joe and the other bloggers have done a terrific job of evangelizing the term ‘content marketing’ – and, I hope, the concepts behind it. There are many great books out there, including Ann Handley and C.C .Chapman’s Content Rules, Ardath Albee’s emarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, and Joe’s Get Content, Get Customers. Occasionally someone sends me a spreadsheet containing their content plan and editorial calendar. But they’re the exception rather than the rule.
So, am I crazy? Just lazy?
Do I keep evangelizing content marketing? Or, rather, are the concepts of content marketing just becoming ‘best practices’ in today’s information-rich marketing environment, without requiring or deserving a specialized discipline?
Maybe Joe’s right to conclude his list, but not because the term is so popular. Maybe it’s because the most successful companies are doing content marketing, and everyone else is figuring out that whatever it’s called, they have to get themselves some of that.
At any rate, I’m ready to cede ‘evangelizing’ to others, and just get on with my marketing writing. I might even change the title of this blog. Hmm.
Any other marketers out there want to pitch in your ideas? I’d love to hear what you think.
Anne Janzer 
Does that mean I have to take [exceptional content] off of my business cards? Maybe not, since I’m a content creator, not a content marketer. I think it’s all just marketing and any marketing — old school, new school — needs content. And there are more kinds of content in marketing that ever before, content that is not just directly promotional.
I think.
Claire- Keep the exceptional content, I like it, and I think everyone understands what it means! It is interesting to watch the evolution in marketing content from the traditional (data sheets, product-focused papers) to the much more interesting and varied content driven by content marketing initiatives. It makes it more fun to participate inc ontent creation as well.
Hi Anne…thanks (I fixed the typo in the post).
I hear you. Honestly, if this was a nine-inning baseball game, we are just getting out of the dugout. There is so much do be done yet. You are right, most people still don’t get the practice of content marketing.
Yes, people ask for tactics…most marketers focus on tactics. That’s okay, because that is where we start…those marketers that are already doing components of content marketing but don’t understand the true power of creating a plan around it are the best prospects for it.
We’ve just started…it will take many years for companies to really start to understand that we have to communicate differently. The time for the Blogs list to end is right, but we have so much else to do. We need your help!
I like the baseball analogy. You’re right of course that I’m only hearing the tactical requests – and people understand the tactics of content marketing, but perhaps not the bigger picture. I keep thinking that they should get it, because there is so much out there, including your book and all of the bloggers. It takes a long time for ideas to really gain traction, especially when competing with the daily pile of work facing most marketing departments.
Now I understand how you have time to read all of those blogs –judging from the timing on your comment, you never sleep. That’s your secret.
I can sleep when I’m dead.
Hey, by the way, see if you can make it to Content Marketing World this year? Sounds right up your alley.
I’ve been looking at Content Marketing World, but I’m not sure yet if I can make it out to Cleveland in September. I’m still waiting for my fall schedule to gel. It sounds great.