Efficiency has become a modern business mantra. In content marketing, you’ve probably seen it crop up even more frequently since AI burst onto the scene. Instead of quieting the calls for speed, AI’s rapid content generation has cranked up the volume.
Automation, scale, optimization: they’re principles that have led businesses to success across fields, continents, and disciplines. But marketing is different. Content efficiency as an end often sends organizations down a disappointing path.
Productivity can give you tunnel vision, sacrificing creativity and burying opportunities to differentiate. That’s why some marketers are rebalancing, taking “inefficiency” as a sign that craft and strategy are the highest goals.
High output does not mean high value
The content landscape has evolved: more eyes, more channels, more output. McKinsey Senior Partner Kabir Ahuja explains, “The broad base of consumers who will consume anything has gone up. The marketing costs of getting people to pay attention have gone up. The one thing that might go down over time is the actual mechanics of production cost and maybe the efficiency of marketing that to the right people.”
Consider that: the efficiency of marketing to that right person for your brand. As competition rises, attention spans shrink, and campaigns call for more punch and nuance. But a marketing approach that prioritizes simply producing as much as possible does two things that can put your brand on the back foot: it overwhelms your team and says “yes” to bad ideas:
- High quantity targets put pressure on employees. In a 2024 survey, 68% of hiring managers said employee productivity climbed compared to the previous year, yet over 36% of workers reported working more hours. Prioritizing output over all else can fuel burnout and diminish creativity, over time increasing turnover and lowering content quality.
- “More” often comes at the expense of meaning, producing work that’s faster but less resonant. “More” means approving and publishing a wider swath of content, including some ideas that may obscure your message, miss your audience, or hurt your credibility. While managers track the number of published whitepapers and social media, they can mistake movement for progress.
Tailored content catches the eye of an elusive audience
The issue comes down to one question: what are you trying to get out of your content? Views or clicks? Higher engagement that leads to higher revenue? These are benefits of content marketing that puts curation and differentiation above efficiency.
At MarketSmiths, we’ve seen companies feel the burn of speed that sacrifices specificity and audience alignment. Even as blog posts rise, engagement stalls. More people visit your website, while leads and conversions fall flat. But when strategy is the focus, the payoff is tangible.
Take global SaaS provider Ansarada, for example. This company connected with us as they were trying to break into the US infrastructure market with their specialized procurement software. The problem? Globalized brochures should’ve appealed to audiences around the world, yet they failed to turn the heads of decision-makers in this specific market.
So we helped them pivot, taking time to produce insightful content tailored to the challenges US infrastructure leaders are facing. Through delays from changing stakeholders and priorities, here’s what happened:
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- 9 executive interviews: We scheduled and conducted interviews with nine high-ranking thought leaders—seven based in the US, one in Australia, and one in New Zealand—then distilled their insights into a 20-page e-book.
- 2,000+ direct downloads: The resulting piece generated over 2,000 downloads, far exceeding their expectations.
- 1K-2K views, impressions, and likes: To encourage engagement, we developed a social media series highlighting insights from the e-book. The success of this campaign impressed internal stakeholders, producing 1,000 to 2,000 views and interactions.
“All the leads from the report have been spot-on, reaching the executives and operational folks in major infrastructure projects,” said KC Cochico, account-based marketing manager at Ansarada. “It’s exactly the audience we wanted to reach.”
Protect long-term value with strategic inefficiency
Creating strategic content means taking time to think deeply about your audience, message, and goals. It may be less efficient on the surface, but it’s the kind of investment that creates long-term value.
Sustainable copywriting partnerships are built for this kind of approach, prioritizing consistency and strategy over pure efficiency. MarketSmiths’ unified content system leans into your specific goals and view point to craft campaigns that get through to your target audience and support revenue.
See what strategic, curated content can do for your business.
