Content Creators ≠ Content Marketers

While there may be overlap, content marketers don’t just create content. They MUST be accountable for the business side of content development.

Creating cool content is necessary, but if that is where the buck stops, observations and correlations will be the best you have to work with.

Content marketers on the other hand, need to know what’s working, why it’s performing that way, and the down funnel impact on revenue.

Here’s the difference (when it comes to metrics) between creators and marketers.

Content Creators
– Total views/impressions
– Net new followers
– Post engagement
– Click through rates (if you’re lucky)

Content Marketers (all of the above, plus the following)
– Web traffic by source
– Total revenue by source
– Meetings booked by source
– Cost of production vs revenue by source (ROI)

The challenge I see all too often is that many content creators are great at creating, but don’t know how to manage it like a business.

Content creation is a process. Akin to a factory, Creators are the floor operators (no offense by any means) who create the goods and Content Marketers are the suits in the office that run the business.

In truth, you need both.

Just be careful not to confuse the two.

Personally, I have spent the last 13+ years creating content of various types, including webinars, white papers, e-books, articles, playbooks, field guides, videos, courses, case studies, analyst reports, social posts, newsletters, podcasts, statistical reports, templates, and more.

All of this content is created in conjunction with SEM and demand generation strategies to drive organic and paid growth.

As a data-centric marketer dedicated to tracking content effectiveness and its impact on revenue, I am meticulousness about using tracking links and meta data. It may be a bit overkill using tracking links for every content piece, but if you don’t know what is working and what’s not, it’s difficult to run A/B tests and optimize time and budgets. 

Throughout my career, I have also developed a content governance playbook that helps content marketing programs operate at scale. Something incredibly difficult to do when SMEs have so little time to create content on their own.