Why Is Your Agency Not Creating Any Content For Your Brand?

I keep asking myself this question over and over. I don’t understand why the concept of content creation, contextually relevant content that is, has not been a priority for a lot of brands and their agencies.

A recent study states that a mere 46% of companies produce any real content. I guess we can be encouraged that 37% of the others have a content marketing plan under development…whatever that means.

Not focusing on creating relevant content is tantamount to failure in today’s socially driven marketplace. Content IS your currency. What’s really disturbing is the fact that so many agencies aren’t creating content for their brand clients. Especially since this could be a huge profit center for the agency and so many brands want this.

In the same survey, over 66% of the respondents say that their biggest content marketing challenge is producing targeted, relevant content to engage audiences. I would also add that activating said content with a social marketing, distribution and promotional plan is equally as problematic for brand clients.

If brands want content to be created and marketed, and if consumers desire to have contextually relevant content provided to them, and if the consumer will “consume” and share said content…why isn’t your agency actually providing this service for your clients?

One of the problems may be that a lot of agencies feel that commercials, radio spots and print ads are content. News Flash! It’s not! No one is going to share an advertisement. Content has to be in the form of articles, videos, blogs, slide shows or infographics. Facebook posts and Tweets aren’t content. Facebook and Twitter are distribution platforms.

And PLEASE, keep advertising copywriters out of it. You need to create authentic stories. Not advertising copy.

Great copywriting is meant to prompt readers to take action like sign-up for an email newsletter or purchase a product.  Great content on the other hand, is copywriting’s big brother; it’s articles, it’s blogs, Medium posts, Google+ posts, infographics, podcasts, ebooks, white papers and video that are created directly for the purpose of emotionally connecting with an audience and provides them with value. The sale is NOT the priority.

The activation of the content to be created serves a number of critical objectives for brands.

68%, say their goal is to engage customers and prospects, while close to half seek to enhance brand awareness. This suggests that content marketing programs play a key role in maximizing the marketing value of digital channels such as social media.

How big of an opportunity is it for agencies to be creating content for their clients? Well consider these facts from the survey:

• A majority (53%) of respondents say they produce 10 or fewer content marketing assets a month for posting across social media.
• However, 44% would like to increase their content production to the range of 11 to 50 assets per month.
• 14% would like to increase their volume to more than 50 assets a month—(currently, only 4% have achieved this level)

I believe there’s a huge opportunity to provide a content marketing service for your clients. This can be a lucrative division of your company and the need for this service, as seen herein and as you’ll see in the full study, is only going to grow.

Download the study results here.