The Future of Written Content

I believe the future value of written content will be focused on credibility and personal experience.

When I got into marketing over 14+ years ago, knowing was enough. If you had knowledge and created content, the odds of being found organically were high. Just having the ability to create content made you more credible (even if you didn't know what you were talking about).

As time went on with more people publishing content online, having knowledge and creating content was no longer enough. You needed to be able to go into great detail and create in-depth pieces of content. The ability to write 1000+ words on a single topic made you more credible and catered to Google's search algorithm. This led to an influx of marketers and content creators stuffing as many words and information into a piece of content as possible.

Now, with the addition of AI, it's common and relatively easy to create in-depth content about a single topic. It's not uncommon to see a piece of blog content with 10k+ words that cover all aspects of a topic.

So, we've reached a point where:

• Creating content isn't inherently valuable since so many people are creating it now
• Creating in-depth content doesn't make it valuable since AI makes in-depth knowledge more accessible for everyone now

And, if that's true, where does the value lie? To figure that out, we have to look at the core reason for creating content in the first place:

To provide information you've learned to those who need it now and those who might need it in the future.

If that core reason is correct, we're left with another question:

If good information is already available and accessible, should we create the same content?

As a marketer, the answer is "Of course. Just make ours more valuable in some way and promote it better. Add a table, more images, an infographic, more backlinks, etc."

The problem with answering this question like a marketer is that we're focusing on improving distribution and not the core reason for creating content.

The correct answer is we should focus on making the information unique instead of "better".

For example, I do a lot of DIY work on my house and truck. When looking for helpful oil change information, there's a ton of content surrounding how to change the oil on my truck. All the content is relatively the same (there are only a few ways to change the oil on my truck). I select a piece of content by random OR because I recognize the creator. As long as the content is correct, I don't care.

However, when looking for helpful information regarding changing the transmission conductor plate in my F-150 to stop my truck from going into "limp mode" - there's a lot less helpful information.

So why is there less helpful information for a transmission conductor plate than an oil change? Because there are more people interested in oil changes than replacing a transmission conductor plate. And if we're focused on helping as many people as possible, oil change content looks more valuable.

But, the question we need to ask ourselves is, can we add something unique to our oil change content that provides something helpful but different than what's already available? If the answer is no, and we still choose to create that content, we're focused on improving distribution.

When researching my transmission conductor plate repair, I looked at a lot of content from forums and blogs. The content that stood out the most was the forum posts from a user who completed the same repair. That user talked about the repair and what needed to be done, just like most other pieces of content. However, that user added a ton of nuance that I didn't even know I needed.

He mentioned a specific light to buy that could be mounted perfectly under the vehicle for perfect visibility. I didn't even realize my lights wouldn't work well until he mentioned it.

He also mentioned replacing a few extra parts that were unrelated to the transmission conductor plate repair since 90% of the work was already done. I would have never done it if he didn't mention it.

He even mentioned which bolts to loosen first to avoid making the same mess he did with getting transmission fluid everywhere.

All the nuance he included was not from the service manual or something he read. It was from personal experience doing the same repair under the same circumstance (in his driveway). Had he done this repair in a professional shop, he might not have cared about making a mess and omitted the information on which bolts to loosen first.

I ended up following his instructions and my repair turned out perfect. I also looked through his previous post on that forum to see if he posted about doing any other repairs (he didn't).

His one forum post built so much credibility with me that I went looking through the rest of his content. If he had other content, I would have consumed it all.

And that is what I think the future of written content looks like.

AI couldn't have given me or someone producing an 'in-depth' guide that level of nuance and personal experience.

He didn't need an "FAQ" section, schema, or alt tags on his images. He solved the core problem before optimizing the SEO and I still found his content. And, after consuming his content, I became a fan. If he took that information, posted it on a website, and optimized the SEO (focusing on distribution) - he'd reach more people and have more fans. But he'd only have more fans because the value of the content is high and unique to a certain situation, NOT because his distribution is great.

What we need to do as marketers

Most of us marketers work in companies or with clients that are focused on short-term success. And, to secure our own jobs, we must provide them with that success.

However, it's our job to help them understand the value of long-term projects that indirectly affect the bottom line. And, in order to help them see the value of these projects, we will need to tailor our KPIs and improve our attribution with other departments and marketing channels.

For example, let's say we're doing SEO and have a client that's focused on sales. Here's what's happening on a piece of content we created:

Organic user -> content -> email subscription

If we stop right there, it looks like we're failing at our goal of increasing sales. However, once we work with the email department, maybe we see:

Organic user -> content -> email subscription -> more content -> sale

Or maybe we see:

Organic user -> content -> email subscription -> more content -> abandoned cart

That looks like we're failing until we work with the paid advertising department. Now we see:

Organic user -> content -> email subscription -> more content -> abandoned cart -> remarketing -> sale

Success is more than an immediate sale or lead. Success is also the journey of a user. The journey of a user teaches us what we did right and wrong. If we fix enough "wrongs" and do enough "rights" we'll have a winning strategy and process.

This journey will sometimes involve creating content that isn't designed to reach the most people and show direct impact. It's designed to reach fewer direct people.

We won't always be able to convince our companies and clients that the long-term projects are worth the investment. However, we should still be thinking about the opportunities.

In the best-case scenario, we gain trust and can re-evaluate the long-term projects in the future.

In the worst-case scenario, we can make a nice piece of unique content in the future (once we're no longer working with the company or client) on how we would have improved the strategy. We still get to showcase our skills in strategy, personal experience, and how we would have executed it.