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September 26, 2023 · 9:06 am

Why Content Marketing Will Continue to Fail in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)

In the mid 1980s, with introduction of the Mac computer, PageMaker software, and the LaserWriter printer, the DeskTop Publishing system was born; for the first time allowing anyone to create print and online marketing materials that did not require a bona fide graphic designer or any elaborate printing hardware to produce physical documents.

This was a major technological advancement in the world of marketing communications. It also marked the beginning of a (ongoing) period that has produced some of the most incomprehensible, unattractive, and brand-damaging print and online marketing materials in the history of the communications.

DeskTop Publishing did not make people with no design talent or writing skills into graphic designers or copywriters. And based on the way content has been created and applied by most firms over the past decade, the availability of Artificial Intelligence will not make people more effective content marketers.

Here’s why:

Most firms still don’t understand that marketing content is NOT about sales.

Blog posts or press releases extolling the features and benefits of your firm’s whiz-bang new product or service are more likely to be read by competitors than by prospects. White papers lost their credibility many years ago, because so many companies turned them into self-promotional sales brochures.

Your target audiences want objective, relevant, helpful information that addresses their challenges and opportunities, and enables them to draw their own conclusions regarding your firm’s ability to assist them.

Most firms still don’t know how to extract or showcase their own intellectual capital.

Using ChatGPT to create a 500-word blog post may provide your company with the appearance of thought leadership, and remove some or all of the burden of drafting your own content. But AI-generated content will never be able to craft marketing content that’s based on your company’s unique experiences and perspectives that support its value proposition…which is what your clients, prospects and referral sources really want to know about.

Most firms still create content that their target audiences don’t care about.

Your company understandably wants to demonstrate its investment in employees, or its commitment to charitable and civic causes. But in an online world where you have nanoseconds to catch market interest, content describing your company’s mud run, golf tournament, or wishing people a Happy Cat Lovers Day, is an enormous opportunity loss in terms of audience attention.

Find another platform for your internal news, and focus exclusively on addressing the “What’s In This For Me?” question that the outside world applies to all content.

Technology tools – whether it’s DeskTop Publishing or Artificial Intelligence – will never replace human (or corporate) experience, insights, talent, or creativity. Those tools are only of value in content marketing if you know how and when to apply them. The marketing profession’s track record suggest that more time should be devoted to strategy than to tactics.

Your Marketing Content: Is it Fake News?

The marketing profession has a reputation for sometimes using less than reliable market research to promote a point of view. And this marketer has been guilty of that sin.

Years ago, our insurance company client was introducing a new Directors & Officers liability insurance policy, and asked us to raise market awareness. With good intentions, but given no budget or time to perform proper market research, we interviewed a total of 6 corporate CEOs and board members to provide some validation to the underlying premise of our press release. The headline read: “Most Corporate Directors & Officers Believe They Are Not Adequately Protected from Legal Risk.”

With very little expectation that such shoddy market research would qualify for exposure in the financial press, and dreading inquiries from journalists asking about our research methodology, the press release went out. To our great surprise, we received no calls from reporters checking our facts, and the story was immediately picked up by two major wire services, and appeared as a news squib on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, followed by coverage in several business insurance trade publications.

Our client was overjoyed with the media exposure, but we felt less than honorable, and resolved that we would never use market research to promote a client’s product or service unless we believed the supporting methodology had sufficient rigor. And over the years we’ve lost client work as a result of that position.

Research integrity was an issue long before the internet became the platform for content marketing. Most often, your research-based news items would not be covered by respected media sources unless you successfully endured their credibility gauntlet. Editors demanded your research methods and data, and had to be convinced that your study was objective and legitimate. Our very thin D&O insurance liability research was a rare and risky exception…and perhaps a sign of things to come.

For well understood reasons, the “legitimate press” now has neither the manpower nor the time to dig deeply for validation of market research that supports content generated by organizations. The loss of this important filter, coupled with the explosion of online content, has created a marketing world in which sloppy, incomplete (and sometimes blatantly false) research generates news items that can go viral and become accepted wisdom. Pumping out content in volume has become far more important than creating high quality content that could ever withstand the scrutiny of a hard-nosed editor.

What this new world of content marketing means for individuals is simple: Assume that all “research-based” information requires close scrutiny. Believe nothing at face value, regardless of the source. If it’s important to your business strategy, or you intend to adopt the research to support your own point of view (or an upcoming PowerPoint presentation), then you’ll need to become that hard-nosed editor who scrutinizes the original source; who looks at the sample size, respondents, questions asked, etc.; and who determines whether the research results legitimately support the conclusions.

What this new world of content integrity means to companies is more complex: Assume that the “research-based” content that you produce is a reflection of your brand’s integrity. For the Marketing Department, this involves educating the corner office regarding the rigor, time and costs involved in market studies, surveys, research necessary to yield content worthy of customer-facing applications. For the corner office, this involves calculating whether the intended marketplace outcome is worth the necessary investment. It also involves avoiding shortcuts.

Without the 4th Estate as the content gatekeeper, there is now far greater opportunity for companies to benefit from content marketing. But by failing to adopt the market research integrity standards that journalists long upheld, there are far more ways for companies to damage their brand through application of the tactic.