The greatest misconception in content marketing (Ronnie's version)

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A lot of hoopla has been made about the "old" content marketing playbook is irreparably broken, leading many marketers to feverishly ponder when someone will finally fulfill some unwritten prophecy by publishing a "new" content marketing playbook that connects all the bits and pieces of advice being thrown out into the ether.

Well, let me be the one to break it to you, folks...

1. There was never any singular, monolithic "old" playbook to begin with. From 2008-2017, there were hundreds of thousands of disparate content pieces published, many created to shill SaaS products and services.

2. This mythical "old" playbook that people complain about doesn't actually resemble what I was originally taught. But miraculously, a lot of the fancy "new" content tactics being touted do.

This disconnect made me wonder if folks just skipped entire sections back in the day, or if they received copies with all the vital wisdom conveniently ripped out.

And, so, I began digging — scouring old PDF guides, resurfacing long-forgotten bookmarks, and dousing myself in the waters of my ancient search history.

What I discovered is utterly disheartening: WE HAVE LEARNED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE LAST DECADE.

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First, a caveat then a segue

Look, I'll concede this much: There's a kernel of truth to the notion that the “old” playbook is ineffective. Simply because a lot has happened in the last decade plus since this thing we call content marketing took off (hence, why I'm guilty of pushing the "old playbook is FUBAR" narrative).

So what changed? Oh, just a few things:

• Market saturation: It's been 13 years since Marc Andreessen prophesied software would eat the world and eat the world it has — most brands today compete against direct and indirect competitors for demand. In fact, it suffices to say the SaaS snake is eating its own tail.

• Content saturation: Every day, the equivalent of 237 million years of music is generated online and the average person dedicates 10-15 hours a day to seeking out and consuming things to whet their appetite in the endless ocean of grey goo copycat content — now with AI! 🤢

• Audience fragmentation: The customer used to spend a significant portion of their daily media habit letting a handful of platform algorithms schedule their content for them. Today they’re spending more time on smaller, often nascent pockets of the web and doing everything in their power to hide from us.

• Platform enshittification: The platforms that amassed users and lured brands crapped the bed and, thanks to the sudden widespread adoption of generative AI, are franticly tried to slow down their rapidly diminishing value by stifling organic reach and traffic to effectively zero, if not negative.

• Consideration paralysis: If audience fragmentation and platform enshittification weren’t enough, there’s this hard truth: attention spans aren’t getting shorter but consideration spans are approaching infinitesimal now that there’s no shortage of shit telling everyone “this is important!”

I believe some combination of these is unquestionably the source of so much pain, frustration, and confusion B2B marketers are feeling — you know, that pervasive sense of uncertainty, where every step forward comes with the risk of veering further off course.

And yet, the answers we so desperately crave to these problems have been right under our noses the whole time.

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The greatest misconception in content marketing (Rand’s version)

Almost a decade ago to the day, the most influential piece of content about content I've encountered in my career hit the web on a Friday.

Of course, I'm talking about Moz's Whiteboard Friday, which for the uninitiated was groundbreaking weekly video series created by then CEO and prodigal son of B2B marketing Rand Fishkin.

I'm referring to an episode called "The Greatest Misconception in Content Marketing" — and it’s lived rent-free in my head for a decade because its message singlehandedly shaped everything I know about content marketing.

You should watch or read the episode here but all you need to know for now is it begins with Rand's signature “Howdy, Moz fans!” before unpacking a falsely-held belief about content marketing and demystifying how the practice actually works for ten minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

• The greatest misconception in content marketing: People read content then immediately decide to buy.

• The reality of content marketing: People read content, read more content, read some more content, develop affinity for the brand over time...then eventually buy once they're damn well ready.

With the exception of references to responsive design and Google+ (RIP ☠️), Rand's insights in 2014 sound astonishingly like the "new" content philosophies being trumpeted today.

The episode of Whiteboard Friday is just one example among hundreds I revisited, each containing the wisdom a regrettable number of marketing influencers consider novel. And the more I reminisced and consumed the content that shaped me as a content marketer, the more I realized: The greatest tragedy afflicting B2B content isn't any playbook being outdated. It's the miseducation of marketers themselves.

This miseducation and its misconceptions are rooted in two underlying systemic issues:

• An incessant tendency to package nuanced complexity into reductive, simplified drivel. There's a pervasive tendency to oversimplify complex concepts into digestible, yet ultimately reductive, soundbites. This inclination towards simplification often comes at the expense of nuance and depth, leading to a cycle of perpetual rediscovery of established principles.

• An inability or reluctance to look beyond the marketing echo chamber and learn there's nothing innovative under the sun. Exasperating pervasive sense of uncertainty — where every step forward comes with the risk of veering further off course — are B2B marketers who rarely venture beyond the marketing echo chamber, resulting in a landscape where "innovation" is often just repackaging old ideas in new terminology.

As harsh as it is to say, Aristotle was solving problems B2B marketers consider novel and lacking solutions over 5,000 years ago.

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Content marketing needs principles not platitudes

Which brings me to my final point — how I plan to subvert the "greatest misconception" once and for all, while righting the wrongs of our industry's tragic miseducation.

In case you didn't know, I recently quit my full-time marketing role without another job lined up.

In my next act, I'll be developing educational resources that forego the recycled BS and equip marketers with truly timeless principles and practices that extend far beyond the marketing echo chamber.

No more gimmicks or acronyms and initialisms masquerading as immutable laws of marketing. No more buzzwords or meaningless catchphrases. No more bullshit. Just timeless philosophies, principles, and practices — because the old rules were never broken, they were just obscured by our own hubris and negligence.

Here's a preview of what I've got up my sleeve:

Red ocean content strategy cohort-based course and educational resources: The flagship asset that I've been working on for more than a year and will draw back the curtain on an open secret: How to really connect with an audience in an impossibly fragmented world and capture the lion’s share of demand in your total addressable markets.

The Neutral Ground Neighborhood School for Misfit Marketers: A repository of educational resources that will reskill and upskill marketers in a variety of areas — from shot design to design motifs, running global content operations to broadcast programming strategies.

Marketing All Hands: A weekly livestream event for marketers. But don't let the name fool you. This ain't your company's boring company all hands. Marketing All Hands will introduce you to professionals from outside the echo chamber (e.g., music artists, record producers, video publicists, and many others) to learn how they tackle the problems we're grappling with in marketing today. We'll talk to interesting marketers, too, and do a lot of things we're not supposed to do in marketing, particularly B2B.

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A new dawn is coming to content marketing. We just have to be willing to step outside the echo chamber. Stay tuned.

Until next time…

♥️ Ronnie