Seth Godin once said, “Content marketing is the only marketing left.” But this doesn’t mean that marketing is the only content your company creates. In fact, even more than the product or services you sell, content is the main thing your company creates. You read me right — your product or service, while obviously a vital piece of what you provide, is really just one relatively small piece of your customers’ overall experience.
When a customer engages with your company, they do it primarily through content. Content plays a role — explicit or implicit — at each and every touch point, for each and every customer, at each and every stage of their relationship with your business.
It’s in the pitches you make and the proposals you provide. It’s in the words your CEO uses when she speaks to the press and the answers your call center operators offer when dealing with a product issue. It’s in your collateral and on the tips of your client relationship managers’ tongues. It’s printed on your packaging and written in your manuals. It’s in every little call-to-action, instruction, and error message, It’s what you say about yourself on your website and what clients say about you when they talk to others. It’s how you attract talent and it’s pretty much the only reason you have an intranet.
Your company doesn’t just create content. Content creates your company.
[bctt tweet=”See why @verdino_co says, ‘Your company doesn’t just create content. Content creates your company.'” via=”no”]
To put a finer point on this idea: your content is your product. For the customer, your content (even if they would never call it ‘content’ or think of it as something different and distinct from your product — which is my point exactly) is not an afterthought. It’s what they actually bought. Or what they bought into, at least.
[bctt tweet=”To your customers, your content isn’t an afterthought. It’s a big part of what they actually bought.” via=”no”]
With this in mind, ask whether your organization treats content as just another thing you also do — or applies the same level of priority, sense of purpose, long-range vision, and rigorous planning as you apply to your so-called “core” products. And let’s not kid ourselves: there is such as thing as a wrong answer. Content is too important to your company. And content is too important to leave to your content department. Content is at the heart of everything you do. At a time when most companies find themselves competing mainly on the basis of customer experience, content is the experience your customers have.
In an age when the only difference between your product and your competitors’ is the story attached to it, content may even be the only thing you have left.
