Independent Thinking Blog

The Awesomeness Trap

No one sets out to create bad content.

The doesn’t mean, however, that all your content is effective at achieving its specific goal. Maybe that’s selling a product, driving donations, encouraging new member sign-ups, educating people, or even the somewhat squishier category of brand recognition.

There’s a highly-entertaining set of ads being run in conjunction with March Madness. The ads feature Samuel L. Jackson, Spike Lee, and Charles Barkley. Here is one of them. [Click here if you can’t see the video.]

They’re fun. Culturally relevant. Iconic. And I had no idea who the sponsor is. (It’s a bank.)

Even Samuel L. Jackson can’t make your credit card cool.

Good content is brand relevant. Take, for example, NutriBullet ads. They’re not hip or sexy — but they know who their buyers are.

A recent survey of content marketers found that 79 percent believe that their team “makes awesome content that our audience loves.”

Marketers on their awesome content

Woohoo! Pat on the back. Except:

  • 52 percent don’t know what works or why
  • 55 percent don’t know their costs
  • 82 percent don’t know their ROI

And 41 percent don’t even know how long it takes them to produce different types of content (which ties back to understanding your costs).

Maybe you make awesome content. I certainly try to. But do you know what really works?

Feature photo by Gisele13.

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