The Content-Free Marketing Industrial Complex

When was the last time you clicked on a company blog post, opened a company newsletter, or listened to a corporate podcast and said to yourself, “Wow, I sure am glad I clicked on that!”

The business world has unknowingly created a Content-Free Marketing Industrial Complex.

The Content-Free Marketing Industrial Complex has led people to believe that the key to “being seen as a thought leader” is just to be seen.

(“Hi guys it’s me!”)

- Not to actually provide differentiated thinking.
- It’s not to push conversations into uncharted territory.
- It’s not to move a category from the way it is, to a new and different way.

It’s to spew advice like, “The key to being a great leader is authenticity” as often as possible.

This is Content-Free Marketing.

“Well Jim, we believe in the power of The Cloud and A.I. to digitally transform key parts of our business.

Our key learning since we started is that this is a journey, not a destination, and to be successful in the new digital world, you’ve got to take small steps along the way.”

This is not “content.”

It’s drivel.

Rarely in life are we presented with such an obvious opportunity to be radically different, then content marketing.

AND what’s also radically clear is that most marketers will NOT do it.

They will keep pumping out pablum — as they build out their ever expanding content-free marketing industrial complex.

Marketers with a category lens, the ability to think and write, on the other hand, now have the gift of undifferentiated content at gargantuan scale to stand in contrast to.

We think this is a multi-billion dollar opportunity for entrepreneurs and marketers with a different mind.

(This post is an excerpt of Category Pirates 🏴‍☠️)