How Many & Which Ones

Typical advice says that there are five to 10 content marketing goals and that you can hit them separately with different types of content. I think there are two mistakes in this approach.

First, it mistakes goals for outcomes of content marketing.

Second, you shouldn’t design to hit only one of those “goals” because it can hurt content quality.

In this article, I’ll share a perspective on what’s wrong with the typical model and offer a solution —a slightly more streamlined (and hopefully realistic) approach to content goals.

For years, we’ve been getting used to the same set of content marketing goals. It goes something likethis:

• Brand awareness
• Lead generation
• Thought leadership
• Lead nurturing
• Creating interest in the product
• Conversion (sales/sign-ups)
• Brand loyalty
• Customer retention

Sounds familiar? These are the traditional marketing goals repeated by countless publications over theyears.

Surprisingly, these goals were built upon two simple fallacies.

1. Mistaking outcomes forgoals

In reality, those are not marketing goals; those are outcomes of good content marketing. In other words, this is how businesses benefit from creating helpful and enjoyable content.

If you’re wondering what the difference is:

So the reason to do content marketing is to achieve the outcomes. But to achieve them, you need something else. You need goals that lead to those outcomes.

2. Implying that you can/should focus on onegoal

...