Are Three Cs of Content Marketing important?

Some marketing companies will tell you there are Three Cs of Content Marketing that you (and they) have to adhere to at all times, applying to both Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C).

These are Content, Context and Communication. Makes sense that you create your content, place it in the appropriate context and then communicate via the most effective platform. Correct? Actually, not necessarily.

Other marketers will insist that the Three Cs are Consistency, Community and Commerce.

And we’ve even heard some say, Clarity, Conformity and (avoid being too) Clever.

The thing is we are often quick to hand out labels to procedures and if you use a tag headline it somehow empowers the person carrying out the task and suggests greater professionalism using an ‘accepted marketing method’.

A better strategy is to stop and think about what you are actually doing and what you are trying to achieve. In Content Marketing, Content obviously is king. You are creating Content that will hopefully interest people and if it is original and intriguing enough it can drive traffic to websites and/or commercial platforms. Thereafter it depends on whether you are trying to increase awareness of an individual, business or product. The thing of overriding importance is clearly the words you are using – once you’ve got that down to a fine art you can decide on the rest.

The advent of AI has certainly become a gamechanger in Content Marketing, creating in seconds what marketers will take minutes or even hours to produce, but purists like us want to believe that truly original content can only be created by having a Conversation with a Client to Create (Three Cs again) something that gives a company or product wings. Maybe that’s it then. Or maybe it’s something much simpler starting with another C: Connection.

If you don’t have any Connection with your Customers you can never Convey their message effectively. It seems our Three Cs list is growing with each paragraph, but the reality is it matters not. It’s more important to strike up great relationships, write outstanding text and engender wonderful opportunities. This is Marketing’s Holy Grail. And all done with not a C in sight.