How content marketing can fuel employee learning and development

I have always been an insatiable learner. I was a big reader as a child and now as a professional, it’s almost overwhelming the amount of books, blogs and articles that I want to read. But as I’ve gotten busier, like most people, reading has fallen by the wayside, with books piled up on my nightstand that I never quite get to.

However, I continue to learn and stay at the cutting edge of my industry. How? Content marketing. My agency is committed to writing and speaking about marketing and public relations topics, and thus I continually read and conduct research to ensure my blog posts and presentations are accurate, comprehensive and up to date.

Virtually every industry on the planet is being revolutionized by technology, and marketing is no different. In the past, sellers controlled the buying cycle, with salespeople acting as the first point of contact with buyers through traditional methods such as cold calls and trade shows. However, today’s buyer has all the power, putting off talking with salespeople from anywhere between 60 to 90 percent of their way through the buying cycle. Buyers are interacting with companies on their own terms—reading blogs and website content, engaging on social media, subscribing to email newsletters, attending webinars and more—then contacting salespeople when they are good and ready.

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” The old quote—attributed at times to Winston Churchill—says it all. Concise writing is difficult. But it’s important—not just as a matter of good writing, but for effective marketing.

In 2013, a human being’s average attention span was calculated at 8 seconds. That was down from 12 seconds in 2000. A goldfish’s attention span? 9 seconds. That’s right, we have shorter attention spans than goldfish.