You’re a savvy marketer in your specific industry and you’re looking to learn new content marketing techniques for your client or your organization. The first thing you do is ask our friends at Google. If you Google, “best content marketing books” you get about 183,000,000 results. That’s a whole lot of information on content marketing. In that mix of results you’ll probably find a range of quality information. From mediocre to the greatest. Here’s my take, even the greatest content marketing book won’t help you. Am I being too negative? Am I discounting the authors’ time and effort that went into publishing these books? Of course not. Here’s why.

Think, Then ACT Differently

In most of the content marketing books that I’ve read, the authors are preaching to the readers to think and then ACT differently. Some of these things could be a complete departure from the way you do business. It could range from creating consistent blogs posts, retweeting other’s links to promote their brand, or creating helpful bits of information for your audience rather than selling them at every touch point. These are great points that most content marketing books share to help us to “think” differently, but when it comes time to take action, it’s almost never taken. We’re human. Change is difficult and especially difficult if it means taking a bit more time to learn a new process. Rather than go down a new path that may be promising, we sit comfortably with the status quo.

If It’s Not Broke
Most marketers that have been doing what their doing for a number of years, have created a system. This system is the way it’s always been done. For example, TV commercials, print ads, outdoor advertising, PR interviews, etc. The system is not broken, so why fix it? Content marketing books don’t say that it’s the ONLY way to market, but they will challenge your marketing system. Some clients that I’ve worked with just tell me, “that’s just how they do it and it’s always worked.” My response to them is that pay phones always worked. Look what’s happened to them now.

So what do you do?

I strongly suggest that you take a look at your current strategies and see where you can inject what the greatest content marketing books are telling you to do. You have to be ready to test, fail, and test again. That’s essentially the beauty of content marketing, the cost to test is much lower than most of the traditional ways of marketing. The data that you get from testing is also a powerful tool to make future decisions. It comes down to YOU. You can have the greatest tools at your fingertips, but if you’re not willing to use them, then you get nothing from them. I also suggest that if you’re not SERVING your target audience because you’re too busy SELLING them, reverse that NOW. I’m not talking some crazy, kumbaya stuff. Just find ways to geniunely, serve your target audience and get them as much information as they are looking for. I’ve seen this transform companies and increase revenues to boot.

Ready to ACT?
Over the past few months, I’ve been poring through content marketing books. The two books that have risen to the top are the two linked below. I highly recommend these books to anyone that wants to get rolling on content marketing. Each book gives you solid strategies that you can implement immediately and start to see results. Both Mark Schaefer and Joe Pulizzi are gurus of content marketing and have built their brands on the same strategies and tactis they preach. Grab a copy now and start generating results to your tireless marketing efforts. I’ll end this post with a quote that’s been ringing in my ears by Arthur Schoenpaur, Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

How will you aim for Genius?