This is that time of the year again when there are look backs and predictions. It is as customary as Christmas carols, the ones we sung last week! And before you rush to honor another age honored custom – making new year resolutions and checklist of things to do in the year ahead, let me whisper in your ear a secret that I uncovered (the hard way) … So, are you all ears?
Dump the Checklist – un-check every box and literally box away your reams of labored content plan.
Let me tell you why.
Your content is not your audience’s priority.
Pause. Reflect. Decide.
Your audience does not care for your content rolling mill. Most of it land in their spam box or trash bin, anyway. You are flushed out even before you are seen. Why?
You are speaking too much and listening less. You are not respecting the intent, interest and intelligence of your audience. Understand what will engage them. Manage your touch points well, your audience will appreciate relevant content, when they need it. The trick is to uncover their need at different stages of their journey. And, it is not that most marketers do not know it already. But the sad truth is, your content marketing plan runs on a separate template that does not necessarily map to your customer interest.
Hold on, I know you are ready to train your daggers and say which content plan worth it salt excludes customer journey! Well, none, theoretically speaking. The trouble is, the template based content plan you prepare, assisted by thousands of free samples available on internet are static documents. These are devoid of contextualization and are not geared for frequent rejigs required to meet changing behaviors. They run like clock-work. This needs to stop.
And, this brings me to my next point, a more important one.
Banish the F**** (Before you get all hot again, count the stars after F, there is one too many.) Banish the fluff, filler and fickle content. Your website, blog site, social media pages are not dumping ground for just about any content. Quality content, that is relevant and credible will earn you respect and followers. And, for once rise above keyword frequency and mindless SEO plugins. That’s a different business. Let your social media team sweat on it. Your content does need to force fit a keyword in every sentence or paragraph for that matter. Give some credit to search engines, they are not that dumb. And, one last thing…
Content promotion matters. Do not shy away from loosening your purse strings to promote your quality content. Spray and pray strategy is past expiry date. The audience you need to reach out has many options and may not see your most important message if its hidden. Bring it to front. Let them see it. Don’t lose patience. Once they see you, get familiar with your visual brand, they are more likely to engage. Re-targeting is thus a great path to build engagement. The key is to be relevant, precise and direct. Are you ready to dump that #ContentMarketing checklist yet? Need more convincing? Drop me a note or comment on this thread. Let’s get speaking…
