Abundant content does not make sales

In recent years the media and marketing market has seen a large expansion in the number of companies and agencies offering social media management, video production, design and digital content. Yet this expansion raises a question more important than how many companies are in the market: what real value does the client actually receive?

For many years, producing a professional video or a distinctive design required a specialised team, time, cost and technical expertise. Today the equation has changed considerably. Artificial intelligence tools can now produce images, write copy, design advertising material and help make video in a short time and at a quality that is improving rapidly.

This does not mean the end of the role of media and marketing firms. It means that the value these firms must offer has changed.

It is no longer enough to tell a client: we produced twenty videos for you, designed thirty posts and managed your accounts. The question that has to follow is: what did that material achieve?

Did it reach the right audience? Did views turn into enquiries? Did enquiries turn into clients? Did sales rise? And does the company now understand its audience and its market better?

The problem is that part of the market still measures success by the number of posts, views and likes, while the business owner, in the end, does not live on views; the owner needs clients, sales, growth and sustainability.

Artificial intelligence may today produce a beautiful design or a dazzling video in minutes, but on its own it does not know why this video should be made, whom it is for, what offer should be presented, what problem it addresses, and how the client moves from watching content to deciding to buy.

That is the space where the real value of human expertise will remain: thinking, strategy, understanding the market, the audience, behaviour and data, and tying marketing to the commercial result.

In my estimation, the coming phase will put media firms to a real test. Firms that sell execution alone will face growing competition from AI tools, while firms that can understand their clients' businesses, analyse their audiences, build their offers, reach real customers and turn marketing into a tool for growth will grow in value.

We do not need more content merely to fill screens. We need content that knows why it was made, whom it was made for, and what result it must achieve.

So the question any business owner should put to whoever runs their marketing is no longer: how many videos will you make me? It is: how will you help me reach the right customer and achieve a real result?

Whoever can answer that question with numbers, strategy and execution is the one who will carry real value in the new marketing market.