rants about content marketing

I’ve been doing content marketing-related work for probably 6+ years now but I don’t talk about it that much or gripe about it that much. Usually, that’s because I keep a real fine line between the type of writing I do in my spare time versus the type of content work I do for others to secure a paycheck1. To be a good content marketer (and I think I’m at least passable) you have to know a little about a lot of different things and you have to constantly remind people that you’re not simply a content writer that you’re thinking of content in broader, more strategic terms.

But I’m having a particularly low-energy work week so rather than work on the tasks I should be completing I’d rather just air some of my personal annoyances with content marketing as a career.

Copywriters aren’t the same as content marketers

For some reason most people assume that a content marketer is just a copywriter, but they are completely not.

Here’s a good distinction from NYTLicensing:

Most of the work I’ve done throughout my career has been less about producing a final piece of content and more about thinking about why this piece of content is needed in the first place. Realistically a good content marketer can look at your complete marketing funnel/roadmap/ecosystem and identify the types of content you need to convert users.

Additionally, content journeys are complicated. Users don’t have the traditional linear process to purchasing your product like they did in the past. Good content marketers take a wide view of your content strategy and understand the different ways people touch your product and what content should be provided for them.

And honestly, I just am not interested as much in copywriting2

SEO capture or breaking search

Content marketers need to know a lot about SEO because search is the single biggest marketing channel for content production on the web. I’ve taken websites with no search profile to #1 - #10 rankings pretty regularly, it’s not a super challenging task but it does require some very specific content organization and thought.

Which is to say you do not have to completely gamify the search experience to get your page to rank #1!! It might sound like a novel idea, but you can just actually answer the question your users are searching for in a transparent and informative way while still making huge gains in search! Too many companies right now are utterly convinced the only way to make organic search gains is to trick users. But users are really smart! They’ve clearly identified the type of garbage that rises to the top of Google and understand how it’s killing the internet as we know it.

The truth is that search is broken right now and everyone knows it! It’s so broken that younger generations are heading to TikTok to search for answers, people commonly Google some combination of [product name] + Reddit to get actual reviews of products, and entire companies are devoting themselves to provide clear and accurate reviews of products3! All content marketers focused on chasing the highs of rank #1 at all costs are slowly chipping away at search’s viability and forcing more and more users away from search. And here’s a hint, if they move away from search the only way to grab their attention in the future is through paid ads!4

Tricking people

If you’ve been in any marketing department you know that one thing marketing folks love to do is trick their potential customers into buying a product that doesn’t do what they claim. It’s common and incredibly dumb!

IMO, this happens because people think their customers are idiots. They assume that they’re so sneaky and devious and such a master wordsmith that they’ll be able to trick people into thinking their product is actually nutritious when it’s really just a candy bar. I hate this type of content because it’s just so pointless to make. Sure you might end up making sales but like, most people aren’t stupid! They’ll understand quickly that your software doesn’t do what it needs to do, that you tricked them into believing it does, and then you’ve completely lost any shred of loyalty they ever had!

Here’s a really quick and easy way to make good content about your software:

Me: “Hey, I’m writing this email for our blitz campaign. I’m trying to say [product] can be used for [thing here], but want to make sure I’m being accurate. Can it do [thing here]?”

Product person: “no not really, it’s really more of [other thing here]

Me: “Oh awesome, thanks.”

Content marketers are not social media specialists

Look, I can draft a social post for Linkedin but I am not good at social media! Please, just hire someone who knows how to use social media and let me talk to them about what content you need! The only reason I had followers on Twitter is because I selectively followed gay people and posted selfies, i’m bad at all of this!

And while I’m at it: more companies should stop expecting giant gains from social media. Social media is a conversation, it should be a platform your company uses to engage an audience. The primary reason all marketing sounds like it was written by a fucking Marvel movie writer is because everyone is chasing the artificial bump of a viral tweet!

15 rounds of edits on any piece of content

No email is worth that many edits. The only reason companies invest so much in emails5 is that they’re a low-cost way of directly sending a message to consumers. I promise you that you are absolutely overthinking your message.

Web-first content is the future

You’d be surprised by how few companies invest time and resources in their website or web-based content. Despite living in 2024, so many companies invest in physical advertisement (which is virtually impossible to track the success of) while leaving their websites as barren wastelands of boilerplate content.

For the love of god nobody wants to watch a video

Absolutely nobody willfully watches a video about your product.6 They watch ads because they’re forced to, the video views metrics on every website are 100% garbage, and TikTok is great because it’s funny and like 40 seconds long. The only videos people want to watch are longer-form pieces that have an interesting perspective, voice, or hook or product demos.

Someone should take the “tell a story to your audience” advice line out back and shoot it

Most people overuse the phrase “storytelling” when it comes to marketing. I’m in software rn so a bit biased but people don’t just want the story of your product they want to know what specifically the product does, what are the use cases for it, etc.

That can be a form of storytelling and can be written in a narrative style. But long story-telling content about how your product saves lives is pointless when people don’t know what it actually does!7

Wild card: just use your project management software.

I get it, it’s not fun. There is nothing fun about being project-managed. My mom was a project manager and it has been the bane of my entire life, not a moment goes by where she is not trying to constantly optimize our entire Christmas vacation. But nobody wants to dig through fifteen weeks of Slack/Teams messages to find your comment on an eBook! Just use the software!

Endless content churn

The internet is basically infinite, which has made companies go absolutely insane and assume they constantly need to produce content. You really don’t.8 You can survive on a set of core pieces of content, updated regularly, and one or two channels that annually target key market segments with different campaigns.

You don’t actually need a new blog post a month/week. You’re better off just coming up with quarterly or monthly campaigns and designing campaign-specific content for those that’s deleted at the end of the year. Or, you’re better off really focusing on optimizing your website, crafting a few pieces of high-value downloadable content, and spending the majority of your time on email and remarketing campaigns/sales campaigns.