I keep reading that traditional marketing is dead. It drives me crazy to think that any company or organization could just abandon core marketing principles when creating marketing strategy. If anything, core marketing principles are needed more than ever in this ultra-competitive, info bloated environment.

While it is true that the internet has changed how we conduct business, how we find information, how we buy things, and how we communicate; there is still a fundamental challenge that marketers continue to face — What to say and how to say it.

The internet, specifically social media, offers notices, updates, videos, tweets, and messages in seconds. Our expectation of gathering information went from weeks to days to hours to instant gratification. Meanwhile our tolerance for good information went from “trust me” to “prove it.” We have lost our patience to read anything more than a tweet that may, or may not, grab our attention.

This communication transformation changed the way companies had conducted business for decades. The speed to market went from generally quick to “warp-speed.”  As companies look to find the newest ways to communicate, whether it be outbound or inbound marketing, one marketing principle still stays true – “How do I create messages that communicate our USP – unique selling proposition?”

With the ever-growing ways to communicate with target audiences, saying the right things will make or break your marketing campaigns. This marketing practice is called content development. Content development sets the stage for a company’s messaging platform through all methods of delivery from web content, sales collateral, events, and all the way through to their corporate lobby signs. If done properly, it fuels interest, educates audiences, drives demand, supports brand, and shortens the sales cycle.

Developing good content has been the marketers challenge since businesses started selling products and services. It’s the first step and the most critical to success. Spending time, effort, and resources on good content development and marketing strategy before deploying any tactics is the best spend a company can do to foster any kind of marketing ROI.