Bad Content Marketing Is Very Expensive

While every company marketing with content is important, not all companies are doing content marketing. Sometimes, the difference is just plain bad content. There is a lot of it. What is the price of all this bad content, though?

According to eConsultancy bad content can cost B2B companies $50 trillion. This is just for B2B businesses. The economy is 40% consumer brands so we can see a $90 billion problem. This is a lot of Benjamins.

This post will explore the costs of poor content and the reasons for its existence. We'll also discuss how to create content that reaches, engages, and converts new customers.

Quick Takeaways

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  Companies lose billions every year due to bad content
  
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  Engaging experience
  
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  Bad content can damage your credibility and pipeline, creating barriers to trusting and engaging
  
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  A customer-focused content strategy allows for greater alignment and a better ROI
  

What makes good content?

The goal is to answer customer questions with authority and credibility by providing high quality content. This blog has more than 1000 articles. While I don't think my writing is of any value, it does show that practice can make a difference.

Content that is valuable not only benefits customers but also the business. A quality content marketing strategy builds trust and reaches new customers.

We define quality content marketing as:

1. Customer-focused
2. Consistent
3. Comprehensive
4. Cost-effective

Before we get to the bad, here are some other components of good content.

Credible Content

As I taught hundreds of SAP writers to publish on our blog I said that while the first piece they wrote might not be the best, the 100th will be. One of the things that I taught them was to be curious about their topic and share what they have learned.

Good content shows passion or interest

Mark Twain's "write about your knowledge" is one of my favourite content marketing quotes. Cloud Computing was not something I felt passionate about. However, I was able to make it enjoyable.

Content should be interesting and convey curiosity.

Good content delivers on search intent

Recently, there has been much discussion about writing for humans and writing for people. While we use SEO to research subjects, we write for people to address their search intent. We imagine ourselves as if we were standing beside someone and answering their questions.

It's impossible for even the most advanced AI to do this, I believe!

Good content is only as long as it needs to be

There are many questions we get about the length and quality of content.

What length should a blog article be? It should be as long as necessary to answer the question.

According to our research, Google will not show you an answer if your content is shorter than 1,000 words. While longer content is more likely rank, it is less likely to rank. However, if you have limited time or budget, it is better to publish more frequently than shorter content.

Good content is formatted for viewer engagement

Would you like to read 12 sentences paragraphs that are three lines long? Most likely not. To help us create what we consider a great blog post format, we use a checklist. We also make sure to use as much white space as possible. Use bullets, summary points and short sentences to convey key points.

Other formats to consider:

• These are the top 3-5 takeaways
• Visuals that enhance the content
• Videos
• External and internal links
• Active vs passive voice

The following checklist is used for all content that we provide to our clients. You can download the checklist or send me an email to receive a Google Sheet.

What is bad content?

Content that focuses only on your business or your viewpoint is the most harmful. People who make everything about themselves are called "The Name of the Beast". (Send me an email if you don’t know!)

See some bad content in

Bad content refers to overly promotional, self-serving and poorly-written.

Yet, the majority of people think their content is better than average. This phenomenon is known as illusory superiority. It is a cognitive bias that leads most people to believe they are more than average, even though it is mathematically impossible.

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Content marketing is a big mistake. I've said it before: trying to sell your content marketing. The biggest mistake in content marketing is creating content that is never used.

What's the Cost of Bad Content?

Forrester estimates that 60-70% content is completely unutilized.

This content is the worst because it doesn't get the chance to be criticized. It's better to throw your budget away and go out for lunch every day. Take your marketing budget and multiply it by 60%. That is the cost for bad content.

I am serious. I asked the SAP marketing team how many demand generation campaigns had generated at least one lead while I was there. The answer was 44%. This is almost 60% of our demand generation campaign budget that was spent on campaigns that didn’t produce one lead. How is that possible? (Answer below).

It wasn't because I was better than average in any way that I had achieved the success I enjoyed there. I suggested that we stop doing things that didn't add value. Let's do the things that help our customers and drive ROI. The result was 7x ROI. At the time, the average SAP marketing campaign had a negative ROI. Events are excluded. SAP events were great ROI generators, at least for the time.

If 60% of our content is never used and almost 60% of lead generation programs don't produce any leads, then you can use my simple math to figure the cost of poor content.

You may think that you are more than average, but you are not. This analysis was done at around a dozen companies. Guess what? The answer to the question "How much content do we produce that creates any value?" On average, 40% was the answer. 60% yielded zero value.

You are likely to waste more than half of your efforts, creating poor content.

Why do we create bad content that never gets used?

My problem is due to the marketing error of focusing too much on results and not activities.

We make stuff because we are told to. This stuff is self-serving and promotional because it is the natural instinct of most people.

An executive asked for bad content!

We must resist the urge to promote our business, and instead try to answer honest questions from customers.

How to Create Less Bad Content

These are just a few more tips to ensure you create better content. These are tips to produce more quality content. See? This is not an easy thing for anyone to say or do.

1. Your team should be educated about content marketing.
2. To ensure alignment with the goals and support from senior executives, document your content marketing strategy.
3. You can emulate the best examples quality content marketing from companies such as Nutanix and Televerde.
4. Use search signals and keywords to map content to buyer journeys.
5. Your blog can be turned into a lead generation machine by inviting your readers to subscribe and offer more.
6. You can measure your content to increase revenue.
7. You can spell stuff really well, use all the right words and take the time to write quality content.

Uncovering Some Myths

A few myths that I have heard too many times make me want to vomit: Content must be original and present a unique point-of-view. These points are what I consider BS.

• A. No, there are not completely new ideas. All of us are just synthesising the data around us, and some of us have more skill than others in presenting our thoughts in creative and efficient ways.
• B. Nobody cares about you. You must care about your customers. It's not about you.

You can also consider whether your idea is original or not. Instead, think about whether your content is actually helping someone.

A person I admire more than anyone has ever said:

Be wary of clever people who say clever things in clever ways.

My Dad

Answer the questions your customers ask consistently and in a helpful manner and you'll reach and engage them.

Create More Good Content

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