Thanks Justin. I think that’s exactly what’s happening to many brands at the macro level. They just don’t know it yet.

Great point Jim. Once we tackled the early-stage content problenm, we exposed he middle-stage and conversion content problem. I agree this is all part of the evolution.

The “marketing” direction may be toward entertainment, but there may also be a “selling” direction to consider.

This may become “content selling” sooner than we think.

Look at past trends where transactional sales moved online, but even complex sales activity has shifted to content marketing and inside selling teams. As companies become more adept using content to inform decisions, along with online access to customers for unfettered referrals, this may further reduce direct selling roles for even more complex offers.

Marketers that don’t focus on developing later stage “selling” competencies may deliver great early stage, brand building entertainment, but miss the holy grail.

Thanks Chris, I appreciate the support and totally agree with your thoughts. Content has to be effective, fill a need and be from a trusted author. I’m not concerned as much with the amount of experience people have, just that they are honest about it. Some driven, young writers are very crafty at research and curation in a way that adds more value from some professor-approach to content as well.

For me the bottom line is: does it add value? Does it come from a place of passion or interest? Is it interesting?

I am concerned that there is a rush to put content out there for the sake of putting content out. There is a lot of crap content out there. Good content takes time and experience to base it on.

Ultimately, if a company is really committed to helping their Customers then they need to provide real content with real advice based on real life experience.

I know of so many blog sites with content written by freelancers who borrowed ideas / content from other freelancers who borrowed ideas / content from other freelancers but do not actually have real life experience to back it up. I think this is the same as lying.

I am often amazed that some of the biggest names are allowing people fresh out of college to write content that passes them off as experienced when they are not. Big brands with crappy content can cause harm.

Now I look at the backgrounds of writers to understand their perspective (if they have one).

There needs to be full disclosure about perspective. When I read blogs written by people sharing their perspective about a particular stock, they often begin or end with a disclosure statement saying something like, “I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.”

I would like to see bloggers say, “I wrote this content myself and I have 15 years of experience in sales management…”