Understand upfront what your objectives are, share them, and remain committed to them. This is where most plans fall apart. Expectations are established at an unrealistic level, establishing two things, Your Marketing Firm is not performing (according to your moving target) and your investment has just been tossed into the round file (garbage). Most clients trash the marketing company rather than making the adjustments together in the spirit of partnership and share success.

The world of radio, television and placed media is changing rapidly. It's hard to believe, but most of the marketing world still lives in this reality, that becomes your advantage today.

Just think what kind of impact ASM could make with a committed budget for content marketing.  Just think what you can do with a stable of writers to crank out amazing content while your competition runs that TV Commercial.

I realize that, even though content marketing is certainly a legitimate and growing field today, there are still so many reasons why (we, you, I) don't do it. Here are ten reasons.  I think it's helpful to know the reasons why we don't do something, which then may help us get off the dime and make that transition. Now here's a "Top 10" you don't want to be on.

Top 10 Reasons Why You Won't Do Content Marketing

1.    Your company is set up to sell products or services, not to provide relevant and valuable information to customers and prospects. It takes a real mindset change to start thinking about your customers' informational needs as part of your marketing strategy.

2.    You have well-worn marketing paths that are easy to follow.  You have become comfortable; going off the beaten path into uncharted territory is intimidating.

3.    You have strong relationships with media partners that may go back decades.  It's not easy to break those relationships by pursuing a brand-new content marketing strategy. Friendships are meaningful to you.

4.    The reduced effectiveness of traditional marketing may have occurred so slowly, the red flags go up just as slowly within your organization. You also hold out hope things will come back someday…soon!

5.    Many companies (possibly yours) aren’t measuring their marketing, so you may not even be sure what is and what is not effective. Hard to make any changes when you don't know.

6.    You lack the right people and or marketing prowess and the right processes to implement a change in your marketing direction.

7.    You are reluctant to abandon traditional marketing tactics for what they may believe to be unproven content marketing or new media practices.

8.    You lack content marketing examples from which you can learn the whys, then the hows.

9.    You place very little value in marketing versus leads generation while you emphasize other aspects of your organization (operations, product development). You do what you know and may not understand that every part of your organization is affected by (or actually is) marketing.

10.    Even though I'd hate to think this one is true, I've seen it first hand...You that don't have a clue about the needs of your customers or what to do about it. Before you can even look at content marketing, you have to know your customer, and their trends.

OK, a couple more for you:
 #11 - It's hard.  It's more difficult to consistently create valuable and relevant content to our customers than place media. It's easier to just write a script and place your ad.  Listening, creating, co-creating, commenting, and actually having real customer conversation takes more time and is harder and sometimes not fun at all. But reward is a higher payoff, but harder none-the-less.

Did we miss anything?
In order for your company change up your approach and consider the new media of content marketing, a few things to happen:
•    Business gets so bad that they start trying new things.
•    Turnover (Voluntary or involuntary) creates new thinking in the organization.
•    A culture change is sparked in the organization, through an internal champion, external customer demands, or the merging of a new business culture through turnover or an actual merger or buyout.

Here’s the opportunity, to become the expert in your market where the consumers of your product or service turns to you for, knowledge, advice and buying decisions when they happen.  How you take advantage of this opportunity is your choice, call Joe Moore at 402-935-7793 to discuss how you can work this into your current planning..