When I talk about Content Marketing I can see shoulders start to slump. Writing? Their posture reveals that this was their worst subject at school. They have visions of filling those Composition Notebooks and using fancy vocabulary words. We had to figure out when to use semi-colons and colons; and how exactly do you decide when to start a new paragraph?
Oh the stress of it all!
Well I have good news in Content Marketing … the biggest success comes from simply giving people valuable information.
Who cares if you used “affect” instead of “effect” or capitalized Sunday or left it as sunday?
The point is, people need your expertise and need to decide whether to trust you as the expert. Here are some easy rules for content marketing:
- Who: Picture your Perfect Client in your mind when you write. Write as if you are reading it to that one person. No one else matters.
- What: Focus on the quality of the information you’re giving. If your reader says, “thanks, this is cool”, then you’ve done a great job. If you’ve bored them, then they will delete.
- How: write in your own words, in a casual, relaxed and friendly voice. Make sure you are always respectful and positive. Use industry jargon only if your Perfect Client would expect you to.
- When: blogging once a week is the norm, so don’t feel that you’re spamming by writing more than once or twice per month. People read, research and review every day, so why hide your expertise?
- Where: Your informative article can be shared on the blog page of your website, Facebook Notes, Google+ and LinkedIn profile pages, as well as your email campaigns.
- Why: If your competitors are informing your audience, they are enticing your customers away from you. Are you okay with that? Didn’t think so.
If this makes you feel more at ease about content marketing, that makes me happy! My goal is to help small business owners move toward their revenue goals with appropriate marketing activities.
If content marketing is something that still feels overwhelming, let’s chat about it.