Why Your Content Sucks!

If it doesn’t benefit us, entertain us, educate us, solve our problems or advance our causes, we don’t want it. If we find something better, we switch.

Today, our mantra is “What’s in it for me?”

All too often, the answer is “Not much.”

We are flooded with content. This blog post will be one of millions published today. Blog posts and other content are clamoring for attention with louder promotions and catchier headlines in an attempt to cut through the content clutter. Yes, headlines like Why Your Content Sucks.

But shouting catchier headlines louder and louder, when everyone else is doing the same thing, will not fix your content.

Why Your Content Sucks

Today, your content sucks because you are focused on creating good content. Your audience doesn’t want good content. They don’t even want great content.

No, your audience is selfish.

  • They want their problems solved.
  • They want to be entertained.
  • They want to be educated.
  • They want it to be as quick and easy as possible.

So what is the alternative to creating more content that sucks? There are plenty of posts about content strategy, with advice that includes audience research, creating in-depth personas, mapping the buyers journey and then creating content in formats tailored to each stage of the buyers journey for each persona.

Much of it is good advice, but it is the advice everyone else is following.

How to Fix Your Content

If you keep doing what everyone else is doing, soon your audience will see the old hag instead of the young lady. Here is how you can do better:

  1. Stop creating content.
  2. Start solving the problems your prospects have.

The goal is not content. It never was and it never should be. Your audience doesn’t need content, they need solutions.

Provide solutions every day. Some days it will be through face to face meetings, phone calls and client presentations. Sometimes it may even include creating content to share a solution.

As long as your goal is to provide solutions to your target audience, prospects and clients, not to create content, you will begin creating content that doesn’t suck.

Your Turn

What challenges are B2B marketers facing today and what kind of solutions do they need? Share your own situation or observations of the market in the comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake). If it is an area I can cover here, let’s talk about it. And just maybe, it will spark content as well.

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