The other day I was a witness to content marketing murder.
I was eating breakfast in a hotel dining room which was partially occupied by a BNI networking meeting. A local marketing “expert” was describing how he propelled a new dentist’s office to the top of the Google rankings through his content marketing genius. His story went like this:
“I found that one of the most popular search terms in the dental category was asking about dental care for children. So we created three videos answering those questions. Then we made very small changes to those videos that resulted in 50 more videos. By placing them in many online channels, we actually created 300 different content placements from the original investment in three similar videos. We now own the first nine spots on Google for this search term.”
Here is the sneaky little secret of content marketing. You don’t need to have the best product or service to win. You don’t need to be the best marketer to win. You don’t even have to create the best content to win. You just need to be first and overwhelming.
This is something that bothers me about the SEO-driven content marketing system. There seems to be such a huge advantage to the first-mover who creates a steady stream of content that I’m not sure there is a cost-effective way to catch up. I know some commenters will say that the key is to create even better content. But we all know that better content can’t win if it can’t be found in the first place.
So here is the ultimate content marketing challenge — what if you DO have the best product but you’re second to market? How do you cut through the persistent clutter of determined SEO gamesters to even have a chance in the search ranking war? What if you’re very late to the party and you’re getting your ass kicked?
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