Content Strategy: 5 Questions You Need To Ask Yourself Before Posting
Written by Martin Wong on December 10, 2010
As new social technologies continue to disrupting old business models and reduce the effectiveness of traditional advertising, marketers are rethinking their approach. The traditional way of advertising has been pushing ads at people to capture their attention. This is no longer an effective long-term strategy because in the online space this kind of advertising is annoying and easily ignored by savvy consumers.
The better way to capture people’s attention is to “pull” them in with relevant and engaging content. To succeed with this kind of pull marketing, you need to develop a content strategy.
Developing Your Content Strategy
To develop a content strategy, you need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What are their needs or aspirations? What are their problems? What matters most to them?
I recommend that you create a list of possible answers to these questions. Even better, call a few of your best customers and ask them directly.
Once you have a solid understanding of your customer’s needs, you need to develop a strategy for providing value to them by informing them, entertaining them, addressing their aspirations or solving their problems. You can do this by creating engaging content that reaches out to them.
Average Content Isn’t Good Enough
The Internet is unique among communication mediums because it has near zero costs of distribution and no significant barriers to entry. As a result, the Internet is filled with absurd amounts of content and people are overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and businesses trying to get their attention. This is where essential technologies like Google’s search engine or Facebook’s social graph come in. They filter through the chaos and provide people with what they’re actually looking for.
To get traction on Google or Facebook, you can’t be average. Average gets lost in the heap. Nobody links to or shares average content or products with their friends. Creating effective, breakthrough content is the challenge that is facing businesses that want to compete in this new media space.
In the online space, one exceptional piece of content (a video, blog, online game, contest, etc.) is more valuable than a hundred pieces of average content. Since the key to reaching people online is a combination of getting links and having people share your content, only the exceptional content will break through.
5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Posting
Before you post a new piece of content online, I recommend you ask yourself these questions to determine whether you audience is going to find it interesting:
1: Is this something that my audience will want to share with their friends?
2. Does it address or attempt to solve any problems for my audience?
3. Does it make good use of the media channel where it appears?
4. Is it consistent with my business’ core values and message?
5. Is this content unique or does it take an unconventional approach to a common subject?
These 5 simple questions can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your content and help you focus on reaching your target audience online.
Image Credit: 10ch / cc
An Englishman’s Perspective on Business in Vancouver
Written by Adam Jones on December 9, 2010
Being an Englishman living in Canada, I continuously find myself asked the same questions:
“Do you like it here”?
“How does the weather compare to London”?
“What is the queen really like”?
“Do you really eat baked beans for breakfast”?
Ok, so the last two may not be quite as common. It may be my stereotypical, satirical British humour shining through, but just in case anybody reading was wondering, to me the queen is just a very rich old lady with a shiny hat and a big house. And baked beans are a delightful snack that can be eaten at any stage of the day.
But enough about menial cultural discrepancies. The topic of my blog post today is to discuss the differences that I have noticed in the business culture between here and the UK. And I was wondering if local Vancouverites also felt the same way.
How to Create an Effective E-Mail Newsletter
Written by Martin Wong on December 3, 2010
Five tips to creating an E-mail Newsletter that gets results
You’re set up with a MailChimp account. You have a template designed. You have a mailing list in place. You’re ready to begin your newsletter campaign. Now what?
E-newsletters are still the Internet’s best tool for supplementing a website. But to convert your contact list into customers you can engage with, you need an effective newsletter.
Follow these 5 tips to create a newsletter campaign that works.
