Wanted: The Chuztpah to Resist B2B Marketing Laziness
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Fri, Dec 04, 2009
Good content and ethics -- why responsible marketing takes courage.
By
Rebekah Donaldson
A few minutes ago I read a post by Sonia Simone of Copyblogger titled "The First Rule of Copyblogger." It took my breath away. She writes,
"....content is too often a lame version of work done by a real expert. (You know, someone who cared enough about the topic to actually learn a lot about it.)
It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of content marketing. Which means I’m a huge opponent of badly done content marketing.
Sloppy, junky, selfish content just gives the legitimate folks a bad name.
The first rule of Copyblogger is you do not publish content that sucks
Why do we hammer you every week with techniques to make your writing sharper, crisper, more effective, and more magnetic?
To let you create content that’s as strong and alive as it can possibly be.
Sure there are tools that will let you hack, mash, smash, and mangle
someone else’s content into a word soup that Google thinks is original.
Google won’t help you if no one wants to read what you’ve got to say.
It's not just a practical matter
Sure there's the practical matter of, "what works? What produces the best results at the lowest cost?"
And yes there's the professional ethics issue of keeping a promise made in a headline and teaser.
But beyond that there's an issue of, well... intellectual chutzpah.
Meaning: When marketing, am I holding myself to a high standard of clear thinking, clear expression, and original contributions? Or am I being intellectually lazy?
Regularly publishing crappy marketing content reflects a deep cynicism about B2B buyers.
Resolutions
Sometimes I get lazy about content. But it won't do. I'm better than that. And you can smell stinky content from a mile away.