One of our partners recently mentioned those companies that “get it” and those that don’t.

What he meant by “get it” is those that have a content creation mindset that allows them to be agile and ultimately execute on their content strategy (for leads, sales, profile – you name it).

Why’s that important? One of the big ways content marketing differs from traditional custom content programmes is that it tends not to be only about big-hit, infrequent content or “the campaign”.

We always say it’s a “Now plus forever” mindset (even if in reality some clients are right now only dipping in a toe for three months at a time). 

So for approaches such as blogging instead of white paper creation – to take one obvious example – being able to produce and publish content much more like a media owner is essential.

Going through endless rounds of sign-offs, approval by Legal, approval by PR, approval by the CEO – it happens! – is going to mean that topical post is suddenly three weeks out of date. Or worse.
In the media world this is never a problem.

Whether working in online, print or broadcast, journalists are used to deadlines.

We’re biased here at Collective Content, sure, but more so than pros in fields such as marketing, HR or technology, journalists hit deadlines – by the week, by the day, by the hour.

It’s one of the reasons why having ex-media folk involved in your content marketing is a good idea.

But there will often be a culture clash between the speed at which they want to operate – which is usually effective for content marketing – and the speed at which a non-media company feels comfortable.

This is a major question mark around thousands of current content marketing strategies and one that rarely gets mentioned.

It’s not always the bigger companies that are worst at this. The partner we mentioned at the start of this post mentioned two of the world’s largest tech brands that absolutely “get it”. They’re reaping the benefits because some of their rivals don’t “get it”.
*photo credit: Alan Cleaver via photopin cc
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