Content is like water, marketers need it to survive. It is the life-force of all modern marketing engines, especially those that rely on in-bound traffic. Having built many high-speed content engines, we recommend building your brand strategy, content plan and then following these tips to optimize your content.
Simple Content Strategy Flow Diagram
2 Ways To Build Your Brand With Content
- Focus on the Customer
Just like in sales, if you want to gain and keep your customer’s attention, you need to focus on them. While many businesses are now utilizing content marketing, most miss the mark by using their content to talk only about themselves.
Content –> SEO and Social Media
Yes, you can use articles, videos, podcasts, pictures, and social media to tell your customers how great you are, how many awards your business has won, and how highly rated you are. But, you have to bend that info back, and let them know how all of that will benefit them.
- Storytelling
Telling stories is one of the oldest ways to hold someone’s attention. In sales and business, it’s no different. In fact, good storytelling in your content marketing can build your brand and increase leads and sales.
Tying in with focus on the customer, using stories about people “just like them” helps cement your brand as a solution in their mind.
So, rather than simply cutting-and-pasting a review from a client, use that testimonial to create a story.
Content Options
What’s more compelling:
“This service is great. 5-Stars.” – Mrs. Jones, Westchester, NY
Or
“Water was bursting out of the pipes, the water heater was rattling, and a small flood was forming in the basement. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when Mrs. Jones called us, she was in near-tears as she watched countless memories stored in irreplaceable photo albums float away. We were able to get to Mrs. Jones’ home within the hour, patch the leak, drain the flood, and had her waterheater up and running again by morning. Here’s what Mrs. Jones had to say about her experience with us: This service is great! 5-Stars.”
In the latter case, you’re walking the potential customer through a situation we all have been through. The testimonial is fairly weak in both cases, as many are. Most of your customers are going to give a short review. They’re busy, and most people have a tendency to “not know what to say” when faced with a blank page. So, don’t expect effusive praise from everyone. However, even small testimonials, when embedded in the story of how it happened, will implant in the mind of your future customer as the go-to solution when they have a similar problem.
