Content is No Longer King
It’s time to admit Content is no longer King. Let’s face it, we’re drowning in content. It’s the easy answer to any and every marketing problem. The time has come to admit to and face our dependency on the easy answer and kick it to the curb. What really matters is a great customer experience.
A 2018 study by Nielsen looked at how much content Americans consume and the platforms we use to consume content. They concluded U.S. adults spend almost 11 hours per day interacting with media via television, smartphones, computers, and tablets. Everywhere we turn, we’re bombarded with messaging in the form of ads, social media posts, advertorials, short- and long-form articles and blogs. WordPress reports 68,866,337 blog posts on its platform as of February 2019. Globally, there are more than 4 million blog posts published every single day, according to HostingFacts.com.
There’s simply too much content. It’s like eating your favorite food. If all you eat is chocolate, you’re going to lose your taste for it. More is not always better. No matter what you’re producing, someone somewhere has already published it. Do a Google search for whatever piece of content you’re working on. (Go ahead, I can wait.) How many results mirror your work? I checked, and Google delivered 722,000,000 results for “content is no longer king.”
(And yes, I recognize the irony in producing a new piece of content decrying the proliferation of content!)
A recent TheVerge.com article argued the attention economy is dead, and I think buried in it is the reason why content is no longer king. Our ability to pay attention is not scalable because we’re constrained by time. Then what has replaced content? I believe what really matters, what really moves the needle, is a great customer experience.
TheVerge.com’s article noted the 2018 earnings report from Netflix acknowledges the company “competes with and loses to Fortnite more than HBO.” Fortnite has become the most popular game in terms of audience and influence by providing a dynamic and constantly changing consumer experience.
It’s not just digital entertainment that has to meet and exceed customer experience to survive. Online shopping continues to thrive, but WWD reported a recent Brightpearl survey found 41% of Millennials admit they’re less loyal to brands than they were a year ago.
Survey results found shoppers are quick to abandon shopping experiences, with 71% of shoppers saying they wouldn’t shop with an online store again after a poor experience.
Research by Adara found travel loyalty program members aren’t loyal either. Program members routinely compare three or more travel brands before making a decision. Only those who make four or more bookings in a six month period are likely to be loyal to a single brand. The rest of us are fickle, preferring convenience and lower cost over brand loyalty.
Generating more content isn’t the solution to a complex problem. Changing the customer’s experience with your brand should be your primary focus. And the right content plays a role in delivering the best customer experience. If you’d like to learn more about how EVG leverages content to deliver a great customer experience, give us a call. We’d love to chat with you about how we can help you win customers.
Kathleen Gossman — Account Manager
