You’ll find many an article online debating whether Content is King or not.

Myself – I don’t waste time with debates such as this – because I believe that no one component of marketing is “King”. A smart marketing plan encompasses a whole range of channels, tools and techniques to allow a business to achieve their strategic marketing goals. Gary Vaynerchuk summed it up well with his quote:

“Content is King, but marketing is Queen and the Queen runs the household.”

Great content is all good and well, but if you haven’t developed a strong brand, or you don’t know who your target market is – and therefore who you are writing content for – then you probably haven’t opened up the channels for all that great content to be read! A comprehensive marketing approach is needed in order to promote content and get it in front of the right people.

On the other hand, great content can help build a brand. Content can help increase brand awareness and allows your audience to interact with and essentially ‘get to know’ your brand. Like every component of marketing – none stand alone, rather, they must all work together in order to achieve the best results.

Of course – we also need to consider what exactly “great content” is? Is it a 3000 essay on strategic planning that I wrote and am super excited about sharing? No – great content is defined by the people that the content is intended for – your customers & your intended customers (or your target audience). Is the content of interest to your audience? Does it fix a problem for them? Does it provide valuable, useful and relevant information? Is it written in an appropriate style?

So, to summarise, I don’t think content is king – however, it is an important aspect of a quality marketing approach. And remember – it must be GREAT content – content that is valuable, useful and relevant to your target audience.