![]() This intersection of finite content consumption and rising content availability will create a tremor I call The Content Shock. There are only so many hours in a day and even if we consume content while we eat, work and drive, there is a theoretical and inviolable limit to consumption, which we are now approaching. However, our ability to consume that content (the demand) is finite. ![]() Depending on what study you read, the amount of available web-based content (the supply) is doubling every 9 to 24 months. Of course the volume of free content is exploding at a ridiculous rate. ![]() Let’s fast forward one more time to 2014 and look at the two factors that impact the economics of content marketing - the amount of content available and the amount of content consumed (supply and demand). The value I was receiving in return from new business connections far exceeded that investment, so this made good economic sense. So with 5 hours of content creation in 2009, I was “paying” my readers $500 in my time to consume my content each week. This was a happy time because not only was the content competition weak, consumption was dramatically increasing too - more people were piling on to the web, on to social media, and on to mobile devices that extended the amount of time each day they could consume content.įor argument’s sake, let’s value my time at $100 per hour. Let’s say that in 2009 I spent five hours a week creating content that would be consumed by my blog readers. At that point, the web was still a relatively uncrowded “content space.” Â Red Bull was a beverage company, not a media company, Chipotle was making burritos, not clay-mation films, and there were roughly one-third as many bloggers as there are now … not to mention podcast producers, video-makers, Pinterest pinners, Facebook posters, and Instagram photographers. We were starved for content and stared with wonder at literally anything we could obtain through this new electronic conduit.įast forward to 2009, the year I became a serious content creator. This was a tremendously exciting breakthrough and I called out to my wife and children “Quick! Come see this! I’m getting a photograph right through the telephone line!”Īt that time, the seemingly miraculous ability to access a piece of content - any content at all - was a thrill. I clicked on a link and over a period of 10 minutes, a photograph began to download onto my screen. I explored the meager content offerings and found a file with NASA photographs. When I got my very first company laptop computer (a brick-like device called a GRID) I eagerly plugged it into the phone line and took my first step on to the Internet with that unforgettable AOL screech-and-hiss of a connection sound. You are “paying” people to read your content Paying people to read our content? Does that sound crazy? But you’re already doing it. So, to get people to consume our content, we actually have to pay them to do it, and as the supply of content explodes, we will have to pay our customers increasing amounts to the point where it is not feasible any more. But in the world of content marketing, the prices cannot fall because the “price” of the content is already zero - we give it away for free. Like any good discussion on economics, this is rooted in the very simple concept of supply and demand. This post will demonstrate in simple economic terms why content marketing - the hottest marketing trend around - may not be a sustainable strategy for many businesses.
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