Want people to pay more attention to you, your brand, or your product? Stop optimizing for click funnels, and share everything you know.
It’s that simple.
Clicks are lucrative, meaningless numbers that make managers happy and customers sad. If you want to make your marketing meaningful — and that should be the job of any good marketer — then you need to start optimizing for something else.
Last week, in part four of my series on content marketing, I said I always tell B2B businesses that they need to “give away the farm.” Realistically, every business should do the same thing and share everything they know.
I have a friend who runs an online cosmetics business with his wife. They make their living selling skin care products, but that’s not their job. Their job is giving people healthier skin. They should share everything they know about skincare, whether they share it on their blog, on Instagram, or with instructional YouTube videos. Not only is there an audience for that, but marketing like that actively makes people’s lives better.
I know that’s a pretty easy example, so let me try something more esoteric: law. Lawyers are particularly adverse to sharing everything they know. Somewhere along the way, lawyers decided legal complexities were good for business, so demystifying the law became optional. But that’s their job. Their job isn’t suing people, writing contracts, or helping people dissolve their marriages. Their job is demystifying law, and making it approachable for the rest of us. I’d wager a pretty strong bet that we’d be more comfortable approaching lawyers if we felt more comfortable discussing law.
The long and short around content marketing is this: figure out what you do, and how you help your customers. Use the best channels you can find to tell them all about it. Shout from the rooftops if it’s the only way you’ll get heard. But don’t add to the noise.
Did you miss earlier parts in this series on content marketing? Start with the introduction. After that, learn how to identify your audience. Then, learn where your audience lives (without breaking any laws). Finally, use all that to tell valuable stories your audience will love.