Content marketing has been my M.O. since I was 19, before I knew it was called content marketing. I’d become disillusioned with college after my freshman year when I realized what a hoax a college education has become, and started a personal blog to launch vengeful tirades against the institution, sticking it regularly to the man. Boy, did I show him.

And boy, did I not have a clue what I was doing.

The “Decline” of Content Marketing

There is no doubt that, when executed properly, a content marketing campaign can bring in crazy amounts of leads, convert sales, and build lasting trust with your audience.

But, in the past year or so, a problem arose. See, companies caught wind of the rising success of content marketing. People heard about individual bloggers forming online businesses and pulling in thousands of dollars each month. And these weren’t the “I’m stranded in Nigeria – please send money” type of new-rich stories we were hearing. We could go to their site and see for ourselves the amount of success they were having. And they all achieved that success by doing one thing in particular: producing fantastic content.

It didn’t take long for nearly everyone to start churning out good content – especially given Google’s very public algorithmic changes that reward sites for doing just that, causing a lot of “SEO” companies to change tacks (like “SEOMoz” becoming “Moz”). All of a sudden every company and its mother had a blog and was pushing out content.

Thus, our problem. Spencer Critchley puts it eloquently in his recent article:

Put another way, an advantage is no longer an advantage when it’s available to everyone.

For example, if I have a good stock tip, I might be able to profit in the market. But if everyone has the tip, it’s worthless.

Content marketing and personal blogs have become so ubiquitous that they have ceased to become interesting, opting instead for banality and redundancy. But don’t blame your blog, so rich and full of original, non-promotional content – blame the other blogs.

But this new worldview forces us to ask this difficult, potentially strategy-altering question: what do we do?

Why Content Marketing is More Important than Ever

The bottom line, the end result, in conclusion, and lastly: KEEP PRODUCING FANTASTIC CONTENT! (Which also means using exclamation points sparingly and not typing in all-caps.)

I trust you weren’t hoping for a faster road to success?

Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, too. That may go against what Mom taught when she told you, “So if all of your friends jumped off a bridge, you’d go too?” And to that, I now say, “…yes.”

What this explosion of content on the World Wide Web means is exactly what it meant before the idea for this article blossomed in my brain; keep producing high-quality content that adds value to your audience’s lives. Build trust, engage with your customers, and nurture them as they move along your sales funnel.

Bottom line. End Result. In Conclusion. Lastly:

Create. Good. Content.

Then share it.

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Jeff Hirz is the Social Media and Content Marketing Manager at Dynamics Online.
You can reach him by calling (216) 292-4410.