The Sticky, Rumbling, Chaotic, Towering and Puzzling Mess (That is Content Marketing)

At times, I feel like there’s a disconnect in the content marketing story.

Thought leadership about content marketing often plays up its simplicity. There’s a paint-by-numbers feel:
1. Slap up blog or resources section on website
2. Put stuff in it
3. Prepare for leadstorm

From within the content marketing engine, the picture looks much messier. This thing has gizmos within mechanisms wrapped in gears and spanners, and – even when you’ve engineered it well – it all needs constant lubrication and tuning.

Maybe I’ve set up a straw man here. Maybe everyone knows this there’s nuance to the content marketing story. But, in the interest of getting more content marketing programs started well, I’ve made a little Slideshare that describes the simple/complex discrepancy and breaks the complexity into three more manageable bits: Structure, Content and Promotion.