I was reading an article at Blogussion late last night, and I got fired up about the topic and the comments from the guest author. So rather than hijack his comments, I thought I would share my thoughts here with you to see what you think:
So, the article I am referring to talks about the New King is Marketing. I completely disagree with that statement, along with quite a few others that are commenting on that post.
To me, you need a balance of content, marketing, design layout, branding etc… so I say that balance is the King. I think I understand where the poster was coming from, but then I would get to the comments and lose him again. Marketing is not king, content is not king, BALANCE is King!
What do you think?
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I've been to blogs before where they're shoving code in my face so I can link back to them or telling me to retweet some spammy post. Why they think anyone would want to buy what they're selling (which is basically nothing but a pile of Google and other ads) is beyond me. Yuck. I think if bloggers don't create something worth promoting then they're wasting their time and annoying the heck out of people.
Without content, marketing is meaningless. Without marketing, amazing content is worthless. Conclusion: balance – just as you said.
…I left a similar comment on the Blogussion post right when that post was published, and said that the key is in the balance (and in fact, nothing is king, more on that below). Sadly, the comment probably got stuck to some filter there on Blogussion
Slightly off topic, but the whole “x is king” crap is getting old. I said it before, but a King does nothing alone, King just is. The same goes for a Queen. Others do the work and King/Queen waves hands to the crowd and takes the credit. Thus, in blogging, nothing is king, because king is not real, and non-real blogs suck. And making stupid analogies just for the sake of it kinda sucks too.
You have the right idea, Keith. If you don't have a steady balance, then you cannot get anywhere, no matter if you are a blogger or not, in one niche or another. Some wise advice, man!
Hmmm…Never thought about it that way Keith. Although I can't stress how important marketing and content is (and I'm sure you're in the same boat), balance is very important as well. Makes a ton of sense.
For example, when there's no balance of good and unhealthy food, it tends to go the route of you gaining weight from eating too much junk food. No proportion/balance there. If you don't have any balance in the realm of eating healthy and exercising, you can only get so far. However, when you balance out the two, you see yourself start to lose much more weight, gain more muscle, feel and actually be healthier, etc.
Anyways, not sure why I thought of that since that's an area I'm neglecting in my own life, but you get the point dangit
Yeah, and there is even so much more; like branding, design, good quality products.
Yeah Antti, that is kind of my take on it. There was certainly a time when I felt content was most important, and to an extent I still feel it is very important. But I think rather than one aspect being dominate, a balance of many is needed….
I understand what you mean by balance, but the word seems kinda wussy to me. Balance is stopping to smell the roses and all that lazy-ass stuff. Success in any arena takes ruthless optimization and total commitment to that worthy purpose.
Hey people, i'm the weird person behind the post about marketing being the king. My opinion, as stated in my post is that awesome content is everywhere. Really. Especially if you are in a popular niche. Therefore you have to create something REALLY great that people will absolutely love in order to separate yourself from the others.
But do you want an honest opinion ?
You won't. And even if you do, it's still about marketing on how successful it will be. A great blogger can make a success of great writings in 2 years. A great marketer can make a success of mediocre writings in 3 months. Sad ? Indeed it is, but this is how it works.
Spyros, I appreciate you stopping by to continue the discussion here! I agree with you to an extent, but my argument remains, that even with good marketing, the content will have to be good enough to convince the reader to click through to your email newsletter or buy your product.
So, to me, it still remains that there stands no real “king”, but a balance is needed.
You can use the marketing to get the eyeballs, but you will need content to keep/convert those eyeballs. So I contend that they are both important.
Another point I would like to make is that a good marketer may be able to get the results with not as good of content, but he won't stay in business if his products are not as good as the marketing….
I think you missed my point, it has more to do with having a balance of good marketing, and good content to keep the reader.
Calling that lazy-ass to me means you obviously haven't read my 4 Hour Sleep Week yet, because there is nothing “wussy” about my business plan…
I agree with you Keith, however I also agree with Spyros, because he's right about “Awesome Content being everywhere”. However, think about it this way.. If you're promoting a soap brand and you see two different blogs, one that has a full unique written review of the soap along with an Ad video, and the other has just an ad video saying buy this product. You'd probably want to read the one with the review because it shares what makes it different, and how it can help.. etc. I'd say Content is king, however it does need to be balanced with marketing, networking… etc.
Very strong justification Keith.
I'm one of those who still support the “content is king” statement. the idea of balance though makes good sense and perhaps it's ideal to balance everything while keeping good content as the backbone of it all. Just my opinion
Based on my many many years of experience in internet marketing, I am talking from trial and error here when I say that content will remain king. Marketing is constant and necessary, but without the content, you have nothing to market. Just the simple fact that by providing unique valuable content brings search engine rankings and traffic. IMO marketing follows content.
I've said it since this “debate” first started. It can't be anything but 50/50.
Honestly, the more I dive into this topic, and think back over the last couple of years, I think there may be a lot more to it that even what you and I are saying Dennis.
In the beginning, content is most important, then it begins to add more promotion after getting your pillar content up, then adding marketing AFTER products are offered.
Good point Keith. More like a balanced plan of attack. I think we agree that both content and marketing are Vital Factors. I've seen strong copy with weak marketing and vice versa. I enjoyed your e-book by the way.
First, you're complicating things for yourself. 99% of the online world think of promotion and marketing as one in the same.
Second, I disagree, slightly. Why is content the most important in the beginning? The WORST thing you can do is publish 50 articles BEFORE you promote…..45 of them (being generous) will never be seen.
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