For the past 15 years, marketers and business leaders have been obsessed with content.

As in, “We need more content!”

For most of the last decade-and-a-half, this was true. More content was a key component of progress toward business goals.

But today, we’re at the end of that era.

Content is dying. 

“Content” and “content marketing” and “content marketers” are headed down the same path as SEO—devalued busywork that too often has no bearing whatsoever on marketing or business success.

Simply creating content is not enough anymore, because:

• There’s too much bland content in the world
• Consumers are overwhelmed with the amount of information
• Content’s effectiveness was always measured in the wrong way
• AI is devaluing it at lightning speed

It’s ok. Things change. We must adjust. 

How do we do that?

Focus on ideas and insights. 

This is what your clients and future clients crave—a new way of looking at their world. The best news of all is that great writing is great thinking, put to paper or pixels. In other words, if you’re a writer, you have the skills to evolve forward in order to provide value for clients and future clients. 

So, yes, your business still needs to be “creating content” but your focus needs to be narrower, your ideas need to be (much) sharper and your execution needs to be outstanding—every time.

Yes, it probably always should’ve been this way, but “content marketing” was overrun with people focused on delivering “a bunch of words” rather than crystal clear thinking.

This is what we do as marketers—we see something working, we do it to death and we ruin it. 🙃 

Some firms will continue to focus on creating content. They will slip further and further behind, finding themselves in an unwinnable battle against AI, trying to please search algorithms and completely missing the boat on human connection.

But smart companies will finetune their focus. They’ll talk to clients, do their research, and engage their smartest subject matter unicorns to develop … err… leading thoughts. Demonstrate deep knowledge of your clients’ sector. Understand where their industry is headed before they do. 

Be bold. 

In short, lead.