Yes. Content Marketing takes work.
If you think there are shortcuts to the hearts and minds of your customers, by all means take them. Stick a coupon in the Value Ad thingy that 99% of people throw straight in the trash. In fact, just go ahead and sell on price.
Content marketing is not about the fast buck.
It’s about the long-term relationship you build with someone that keeps them coming back, reinforcing the old maxim that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to win a new one.
In its purest form, content marketing doesn’t even contain a sale pitch. It can be as simple as creating empathy with your key demographics by illustrating that when it comes to a particular cause or issue, you’re on their side.
It may lack the precise ROI that a direct marketing campaign can show… but think of most traditional forms of marketing as giving a man a fish, and content marketing as teaching him that he’s going to need a bigger boat.
Content marketing should be original, intelligent, varied, unexpected, and it should work toward the singular endgame of creating a relationship.