Content marketing is a concept which, if executed correctly, allows you to target the perfect piece of content, at the exact right person, just when they want or need to see it. It’s a great process to master, but this blog covers some extra trains of thoughts which are sometimes forgotten about…People, Passion and Patience.
People
Both you and your audience!
Simplistically, who the dickens are you writing for? When devising a content strategy, at the outset the most important thing you can do is;
- identify your audience
- segment them
- devise a content plan for each persona based upon:
- who they are
- how they prefer to be spoken to
- where they congregate on-line.
- What content types they currently consume
N.B. Our MD Paul Tansey wrote a fantastic blog on Personas. This would be a good starting point to define your target personas.
You as the writer also have a style and a voice, make sure you align what you say to your personas and make sure you can write with the utmost authority on your subject, select a niche and dominate it.
Make sure that your content answers the questions that people ask and understand that your content is only as good as what other people say about it, if it is not being seen no one can comment. Target your content so that it is relevant and shareable.
Passion
In a world where everyone is creating content, what makes you stand out? You can bet that someone else out there knows more than you, can write more than you, has bigger reach than you. But can they deliver the ideas with passion like you?
It is my belief that the successful business of today will be the business that has the ability to create content out of passion rather than necessity and the leaders in their field will be those who write and create because they want to share great thoughts and ideas. Not for any particular gain, but because they are passionate and want others to feel the same way.
I compel you to create amazing content that differentiates you from the competition, understand what people want and create fantastic content about it; make great videos, interactive infographics, or simply write fascinating blogs.
Patience
You may get lucky, your first piece of content may go viral, it might be the funniest YouTube video ever uploaded and is shared globally. The chances of that happening however are very slim. Especially if you are focusing your content on a small sub-section of the plumbing community espousing the virtues of why you should use the Blue Left Hand Threaded Widget over the Red Right Hand threaded widget.
You need patience, you need to understand that it is going to take time to establish yourself as a passionate thought leader in your field, time to establish the trust, the following and the credibility to be shared, linked to and liked.
It will take time for others in your industry to start listening and quoting what you say and longer still for potential customers to take note of you as a trustworthy source of vital information. So much so that the next time they buy, they buy from you!
Is it worth it? You decide.
