Content has a long held title in digital marketing.  It’s the King.

From the early days of SEO, marketers sought to “feed” Google content that would help a domain rank for target keywords.  In the past, we described content as “love letters to Google”.  This implied that the content was more for Google than for humans.

But this was the type of SEO strategy Google overcame.  With Penguin, the algorithm became adept at evaluating content for its value to online users.

Suddenly all that SEO content actually needed to be of exceptional quality to readers.

So businesses took the challenge and started creating the most interesting, useful, entertaining – even outlandish – content they could.  All in a headlong race to gain audience and attention.

But a new problem arises.  Suddenly, millions of people/businesses/organizations are creating content.  So much content that it becomes all but impossible to capture attention.

A marketing blogger named Mark Schaefer coined the term “content shock“, claiming that content marketing was not a sustainable strategy.  The thrust of his argument is that our ability to create content outstripped our capacity to consume it.

This left most business blogs and social media accounts languishing in anonymity, even when professional content teams put together the best content they could come up with.

Content shock is a theory that most content marketers attempt to refute.  We won’t do so here.  Looked at in general, content shock is a reality.  There are so many people using digital marketing to vie for audience share that trying to win a mass audience in the sense of traditional publishing is almost impossible.  For the typical SMB, the idea of trying to create a unique media space to gain a large following of subscribers or on social media is a pipe dream.

It is a shocking conclusion.  The King is on it’s deathbed.  But all is not lost.

Consumers Will Always Research

The first point SMBs need to remember is that creating content is not all about SEO.  It’s not all fluffy “love letters” to Google.

Today, it’s more important to consider how your prospective buyers behave in the buying cycle.  As Marcus Sheridan points out, underlying all the catch-phrases are the essential acts of listening, communicating, and teaching.

For the SMB, it’s most important to understand how your prospects research during the buying cycle and provide information useful to that process.  This trumps “amazing” content every time.  When you get into a niche subject area, you can create standout content that attracts your audience.

Think more like a consultant or teacher than an entertainer.  You won’t compete with Stephen Colbert or become the next Vaynerchuk.  But if you answer specific questions that fit naturally into your customer’s path to making a purchase, you gain attention, earn trust, and move towards a sale.

That’s what SMB content marketing needs to be about.

Your Goal is Customer’s, Not Audience

This may seem obvious, but a point that gets overlooked in content marketing is that SMBs don’t really want an audience.  They want more customers.

The confusion arises from SEO goals.  It’s an SEO advantage to have a large, engaged audience.  When you’re content appears to offer useful, relevant info that gets consumed and shared online, it’s favored in search results.

But for the most part this is the wrong metric.  Audience is anyone who looks at your stuff.  They’re not necessarily a lead or a buyer.

There is a bright side here.  Content shock is more of audience problem.  If audience share is your goal, you have an Everest like uphill climb.

But when you focus on the the people who pay the bills – your customers – you narrow down your “audience”, giving you a focus group you have the potential to reach.

The purpose of your content goes beyond gaining attention and visibility online.  It’s used in your sales process to educate, nurture, and qualify leads.  It’s used as a retention strategy to provide value to your existing clients.

If you answer specific questions that fit naturally into your customer’s path to making a purchase, you gain attention, earn trust, and move towards a sale.

And, perhaps most importantly, it becomes the an integral part of your company mission.  It’s part of your business “Constitution”. defining the value you offer.

Again and again, we hear Google talk about how they want to rank content that “helps consumers when they need it the most,” or “improve consumer’s lives”.

How does your business make your customer’s lives better?  How do you communicate that value?

If you can answer those questions, content shock will be irrelevant to you.  You have a mission that your content serves.  And for the SMB, that mission is truly king.