Content marketing is everywhere today. It's the engine behind the majority of our marketing. Today, our customers have so many options when it comes to getting the information they need to make buying decisions. If you don't have the most interesting, most helpful content to solve their problems, you may get left out of the buying process entirely. Here are five key content marketing truths that are critical for your business to start planning for now.
1. A customer relationship doesn’t end with the payment.
The absolute best reason to create content for customers is to encourage loyalty and retention. The oldest content marketing examples on the planet (like John Deere's "The Furrow" magazine) were developed to help keep customers… well… customers (The Furrow was created in 1895 and is still produced today, sent to 1.5 million subscribers in 40 countries and 14 languages).
How can you develop a better relationship with your customers when they don't necessarily want to talk to you all the time? By delivering relevant, helpful and consistent information to them in a format that they want. Think of ongoing blog posts, an e-newsletter, or a video or podcast series.
2. Printed marketing doesn’t stop with the full-page advertisement.
Print is making a comeback, but in a new way. As less and less mail gets delivered through the post, it is opening up an opportunity to communicate with our customers and prospects in print…but not with an ad. Print custom magazines and newsletters are coming back into style. For example, TD Ameritrade's magazine thinkMoney is delivered six times per year to customers. They've found that those customers that read thinkMoney trade five times more than those that don't. That is one program that the CEO will never get rid of.
3. Focusing on what the customer wants is more important than what you have to sell.
Repeat after me: "My customers don't care about me, my products, or my services…they care about themselves".
This is the cardinal truth of content marketing. Sure, every once in a while they might need something you have… but what about the other 99 percent of the time? It's in those moments when we need to focus on how to solve their everyday pain points as it relates to what we sell.
Guitar Center sessions are a great example of this. They add over 2,000 subscribers a week to their YouTube channel by showcasing amazing music experiences. Not once do they say "buy this at Guitar Center.” But it happens just the same.
4. The competition can copy everything you have except your brand. The way you communicate is the differentiator (the only one).
You probably sell products that your customers can get pretty much anywhere. How are you any different? What would make someone want to shop with you over one of your competitors? The only thing you can do is communicate in a different way. Like the great Peter Drucker said, there are only two ways a business can be different – marketing and innovation.
Note that he didn't say "products". So learn how to tell a different story, at least as much as you focus on what you actually sell.
5. Without content, community is improbable, if not impossible.
Anything you try to do on the web to build a community does not happen with content… without the substance. Amazing and relevant content is what makes social media go. Instead of focusing so much on your social channels, spend more time figuring out what goes into those channels. Maybe a more concentrated focus on fewer channels is just what the doctor ordered.
Joe Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute, the leading education and training organization for content marketing, which includes the largest in-person content marketing event in the world, Content Marketing World. Joe is the winner of the 2014 John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Content Council. Joe’s third book, Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less, was named one of the “Five Must Read Business Books of 2013” by Fortune Magazine. You can find Joe on Twitter @JoePulizzi. If you ever see Joe in person, he’ll be wearing orange.
