Why Content Rules and What So Many Organizations Miss in Marketing
Here's an update on permission marketing in the world of social-media controlled distribution and AI-generated search results. Click here to subscribe to the ESM weekly e-newsletter.
Highlights:
- Marketing still boils down to identifying and building relationships with the people most likely to key.
- Organizations without an authentic content strategy or that rely solely on social media will become increasingly anonymous based on the combined forces of social media algorithms, AI and changes in traditional SEO (search engine optimization.)
- Social media platforms do not reliably deliver your content to your own followers, let alone those outside of your network.
- E-newsletters are far more reliable because if they contain useful or engaging content, people open them.
- The new AI-powered search engines favor organizations that produce meaningful content.
- Content today is critical to search results credibility; thought leadership, brand enhancement and how you and your organization appear in AI-generated search results.
The results of this strategy can be measured by:
- How many people opt-in to or out of communication with your organization;
- What sources yield the most qualified opt-ins;
- What do people in your database do in terms of purchases, referrals, and engagement with your engagement efforts;
- What are the average revenues, costs and profitability per customer, along with standard marketing ROI and value-add calculations.
The major challenge for the marketing profession is that most people in marketing lack training in what is essential today: the creation of strategic, meaningful content that encourages people to opt-in to your organization’s communication engine, regularly engage, and reach out when in a buying mode. Sorry marketers, but most of you are trained to sell, which results in producing content that reduces trust. The proof: almost every leading brand I engage with does no more than e-mail me special offers or other self-promotion—only a few ever provide useful or entertaining information to engage me or build trust so that I consider them when ready to buy.
With the right database and content producers and editors, any organization can create its own media platform on which it can promote its products and services with an ever-growing engaged audience.
Great content builds trust by authentically informing or entertaining people, not finding subtle ways to get them to buy. Using AI as a tool to identify what engages or to inspire and draft content makes sense. On the other hand, without proper oversight from senior content producers and editors, it’s a recipe for disaster due to AI hallucinations, false information, bizarre inferences, etc.
Control Your Content Distribution: The Importance of E-Newsletters
It doesn’t matter how engaging your social content is if you can’t control who sees it.
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EEA newsletter open rates range from 20% to 40%. Did print media ever generate such consistent engagement? Despite expensive research, no one ever really knew.
Depending on your business, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X etc. play a critical role in content creation and distribution with one serious flaw: there is no guarantee that even your followers will see all your content because of the algorithms. In fact, Linkedin has drastically cut the visibility of posts to promote paid boosts, so that most companies only reach the people they already know unless they strategically share content of targeted customers or influencers, which few rarely do. Social media is not a post office: there is no guarantee of delivery. One of our clients as over 29,000 followers, often with as little as 100 views--even those these people specifically opted into the company's content.
Of course, with Linkedin, you can build a newsletter audience to guarantee delivery, but from my experience engagement rates are higher with e-newsletters than with Linkedin, even though your Linkedin newsletter is delivered by email to those subscribers who opt in for e-mail delivery.
Substack is one way to guarantee distribution via social media, but the long-form content format isn’t for everyone. This is why we recommend that all our customers use e-newsletters. They remain the most powerful communications tool because you control your own distribution, subscription management, and engagement by creating appropriate content and watching what works. If you produce quality content, open rates can range from 20%-50%, with negligible opt-out rates. (Ours is well below 1% per year.)
This company uses it's e-newsletters to engage with and inform its industry, not just to sell. It takes ahout a minute to read with open rates from 20%-40%.
Will Your Organization Be Left Out of the New World of AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
If content were not always the most powerful force in marketing to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy, it is now. AEO levels the playing field. In the new world of AEO, content truly rules. (AEO is another way of saying AI generated search results.) Smaller organizations such as our Enterprise Engagement Alliance can now stand side-by-side with much larger organizations in organic search because of the quality and quanity of our content.
AEO means producing content that appears in AI-generated search results as well as SEO (search engine optimization). Here are real-life examples of how content enhances the chances that your organization shows up meaningfully in search results.
1. Search results credibility.
Most would agree that having positive information about their organizations showing up in search results remains a powerful way to generate leads or enhance your credibility. What counts most is not what you say about your organization, but what others say. When people search for your organization, having other articles and information from independent sources coming up along with your name helps reinforce your credibility and tell your story. Search for many of EEA’s RRN and ESM media advertisers and articles published about or authored by them in our media or their storefronts in our marketplaces usually come up high in the same results, almost always within the top 10. In this case, under the search results for Partners for Incentives immediately comes an independent overview of the company in the EEA's Brand Media marketplace. This advantage extends to AI-generated results as well in terms of footnoted references.
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2. Thought Leadership.
Producing high quality content increases the chance that your information will come up when people seek information about your field. For example, I asked CoPilot: Please provide me with an overview of the incentive, rewards, and recognition field. Our RRN’s content comes up with the leading human resources association in Great Britain and a large enterprise engagement technology firm.
CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) – Their evidence-based review explores how different forms of financial and non-financial incentives impact motivation and performance. It emphasizes the importance of fairness, task type, and the psychological mechanisms behind recognition.
Rewards and Recognition Network (RRN) – Their 2022 market report highlights the IRR field's growth potential, especially in the context of stakeholder capitalism and human capital reporting. It also discusses the industry's evolution, challenges, and the increasing use of technology platforms for enterprise engagement.
CarltonOne – This source provides a concise industry overview, focusing on how IRR strategies are used to drive engagement, productivity, loyalty, and wellness across various stakeholder groups, including employees, customers, and partners
3. Independent verification of your value proposition.
We asked CoPilot for the leading independent sources of research, news, and information on stakeholder capitalism. In this case, it comes up with:
1. Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA)
- Focus: Practical implementation of stakeholder capitalism through enterprise engagement strategies.
- Why it matters: Offers frameworks, case studies, and news updates on how organizations align stakeholder interests with business goals.
- Key resource: Stakeholder Capitalism 2025: Progress Continues Despite Lack of Active Advocacy
- Focus: Global thought leadership and advocacy for stakeholder capitalism.
- Why it matters: Founded by Klaus Schwab, who introduced the stakeholder model in the 1970s. The WEF continues to shape global discourse on corporate responsibility.
- Key resource: What stakeholder capitalism is and what it isn’t
- Focus: Governance innovation and stakeholder accountability.
- Why it matters: Provides insights into how stakeholder capitalism is reshaping corporate governance structures.
- Key resource: Stakeholder Capitalism – The New Face of Governance in 2025.
Summary
Marketing requires an entirely new playbook that challenges organizations to stop selling and start building relationships. Here's summary of recommendations.
- Clearly identify the purpose, goals, objectives, and value proposition of your organization and how you help people, professionals, and organizations.
- Develop, maintain and continually build a permission-based database and a regular communications strategy that helps and informs, instead of simply selling, across all relevant platforms.
- Integrate social media with e-newsletter distribution, with a focus on helping, entertaining or other ways of adding value other than always selling.
- Measure the results by the number and quality of opt-ins; their source--marketing, events, salespeople, etc.; the level of audience engagement with content; sales, costs, and profitability of customers; marketing ROI and value add (very simple calculations), and customer satisfaction (both internal and external.)
If this topic is of interest, here are other resources you might find of interest:
The Essence of Permission Marketing: Efficiency, Measurability, Results An overview of the principles of permission-based marketing and targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
Inhouse or Agency Support: What Makes Sense for Your Social Media Marketing This article helps organizations determine the best solution for managing social media and permission marketing.
How to Increase Your Sales and Profits Through Effective B to B Content Marketing. An article and video show with permission-marketing expert Rachel Cogar.
Marketing in the New Era of Transparency. This article provides an overview of the impact of the new EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive on marketing practices.
Take This Quick Test to Find Out if Your Permission Marketing Is Up to Date. Now that third-party cookies are gradually going away, marketers will need to find new ways to gain permission.
Insight: Are You or Your Company a "Me" Brand or a "You" Brand. Some brands and people prefer to put the spotlight on themselves; others prefer to put the spotlight on stakeholders. Both can work: which approach do you prefer?
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services
Celebrating our 15th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:
- ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards since 2020
Management Academy to enhance future equity value for your organization.3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.
4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.
5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
Contact: Bruce Bolger at TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
