Content Saturation: How to Cut Through the Sludge
Unlock the secrets to cutting through the chaos of content saturation with expert insights designed to elevate your marketing game.
If “Content is King”, then surely now, we’re seeing its kingdom expand into every nook and cranny imaginable.
With 60% of marketers creating at least one piece of content each day, adding to the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, you have to live under a rock to avoid the colossus of content that invades our everyday lives.
So, what does your business need to do to separate from the content saturation problem and cut through the noise?
In this piece, we discuss how to turn content saturation into a potential opportunity and what your business can do to escape it.
Is Content Creation Saturated?
Competing for audiences' attention spans becomes fiercer and fiercer as content continues to reign supreme for marketing purposes.
From rising to the top of search engine rankings to rolling down social media platform feeds, as businesses, we’re all trying to win that screen time battle with content saturation as the consequence of this competition.
Let’s put this into context. Every day, the internet receives:
300 million photos.
510,000 comments per minute.
293,000 status updates.
Since French thinkers decided postmodernism defined our worldview, artists and creators have resigned to accepting new content is never original, with every piece just a variation of what came before it.
When we apply this idea to our current content marketing strategies, we can begin to understand how content saturation has created something of a creativity crisis.
After all, how many ‘Top X Things to do in a Capital City’ blogs do we need?
SEO saturates search engines. Trends in social media. Subject lines in emails. And so on.
The desire to disrupt our consumers' attention has caused marketers to produce content as quickly and effectively as possible.
The cost?
An oversaturated content world that gets denser and denser by the day.
How to Avoid Content Saturation
So, what’s the solution? Well, it’s important to remember that just because content has become oversaturated, it doesn’t mean your content needs to follow suit.
Whether it’s our next favourite podcast or holiday page-turner, as content consumers, we still take the time to make choices, wading through the mediocre, ordinary sludge to find the good stuff worthy of our attention.
So, while content creation might appear more difficult to puncture in this age of ever-increasing saturation, in some ways it presents an opportunity for marketers.
If you can’t go over it, under it or around it, we have no choice but to go through it.
Standing out from the crowd means not being part of the crowd at all.
We have to be brave, bold and creative.
But most of all, we have to be different.
Catching Your Consumer’s Curiosity
Darren Burroughs, Managing Director at Sticky points out how we need to tap into curiosity and forget demographics to avoid content saturation.
Rather than jumping straight into what your brand can do for its consumers and how. It might be time to pay attention to why.
Beyond a childish phase of wanting to know the square root of the universe, “why” is synonymous with curiosity.
So, before you start preparing your next campaign, the first thing to ask is:
Why should your audience be curious about your business?
Recognising what makes your business curious to your audience relies on understanding the curiosity triggers for your audience.
“Not only do we want to pique people’s curiosity, but we have gone one step further to identify the different ways that people are curious and the external factors that in turn can affect people’s curiosity.
“A huge amount of desk research and field studies have led us to identify and create 5 Curiosity Cohorts, and we use these cohorts and their distinct behavioural nuances as the lens through which to create and distribute content. By doing this we talk to audiences in a way that resonates with them and, in turn, rise above the sludge and the noise.”
Discover the power of harnessing curiosity in your content with Sticky’s blog – ‘Demographics are dated, capture curiosity for next level content’.
Deeper Connections
Personalisation remains a powerful marketing strategy, using demographics to tap into our customers' interests, preferences and buying behaviours, as 59% of consumers agree personalised engagement is crucial to winning previous business.
But like Sticky’s curiosity approach, Clare Jonik at Feel Good Marketing claims making deeper connections with our audiences cuts through the saturated content arena to rise above centre stage.
If we can look deeper into their psychology and motivations, we can connect them to our business on much more engaging, stimulating and personal levels.
Opposed to casting the largest net we can and trying to catch as many potential leads as possible, a content marketing approach based on intimate engagement and deeper personalisation is necessary to build stronger bonds with our audiences.
However, sustaining deeper connections relies on understanding our consumers on much deeper levels than basic demographics.
Previous online behaviour can reveal patterns to help us paint a more tangible portrait of our consumer but creating opportunities for understanding how deeper connections are formed will be the key to avoiding falling into the pit of content saturation.
Now, we’re not saying this will be easy, but rather than spending time splurging out content for the masses, how about focussing on fewer leads but ones where you can make a much bigger impact?
“It’s about identifying the white space where genuine connections can be built, creating opportunities that resonate deeply and cut through the noise of competitors. By tapping into these insights, brands can deliver more relevant, impactful experiences that foster loyalty and long-term engagement.”
You can hear from both Clare and Darren during our Content Breakfast in October – How to Measure Your Content Marketing Efforts.
Want to get involved with the Content Marketing community?
As the home of content marketing, at the CMA, we’ve made it our mission to promote content marketing as a powerful tool for businesses while driving the growth of our industry.
By becoming a CMA member, you’ll connect with a professional network of content marketing specialists and gain access to valuable resources, exclusive events, and industry awards.
The membership is designed to expand your knowledge, enhance your skills, and open new doors for opportunities while keeping you ahead of emerging trends, collaborating with industry professionals, and contributing to shaping the global content marketing landscape.
So, whether you're a freelancer, brand, agency, or start-up, our membership provides unrivalled benefits for you to really make a mark in the industry.
Get in touch for more details about how CMA can take your brand to the next level.