Back
Everyone is creating content, and if you’re doing what everyone else is doing, how do you plan to set yourself apart? Your content shouldn’t just be another task; it is one of your greatest assets and should be appraised like one.
If you do the right things, your content will market you and not just the other way around. There are three considerable elements when it comes to successful content marketing- storytelling, a framework and ideation. Let’s dive deeper into each one!
Storytelling
Stories resonate like nothing else. As a species, stories have made our survival easier, it’s easier to make sense of the surroundings and things we aren’t able to comprehend at the present moment. A good story has an emotional appeal that is so strong that it becomes spellbinding. You get so engrossed that for a few moments, this story is all that matters.
You need to tell a story because it’s important to your customer. It matters to them to strike an emotional chord with you before they spend their hard-earned money on you. It reassures them that they are making the right choice.
People like to think they are logical and all their decisions revolve around logic. But emotion is what actually helps you make a buying decision. You want to feel you’re doing what you need to do. Logic doesn’t help you get that, emotion does.
Content Marketing Framework
To create a sophisticated framework, you need to first come up with an idea and then conceptualize it. Write multiple pieces of content for each stage of your buyer’s journey. The content would differ from stage to stage. For instance, in the awareness phase, e-books and social content work well while in the decision making phase, you need something more educative.
Before you decide on a piece of content, understand what purpose it would be serving. Your content should resolve a real issue, cater to a clear predicament. Value is what it all boils down to.
It’s important to set a timeline to keep your content planned and organized. This will also help you adapt quickly if something else comes up and needs your immediate attention. Streamline your workflow by outlining distinctive roles and responsibilities. Your framework should always change to better suit your needs as well as market requirements.
Ideation
To create expert-level content, you need to keep learning. It doesn’t have to be only marketing content, consume every writing piece that catches your eye and interests you at some level or the other. Other than industry related content, read fiction, poetry and biographies as well to keep your creative juices flowing and to consistently evolve as a writer.
Talk to subject-level experts, inside and outside your company to get fresh perspectives and glean knowledge that would help your content and eventually your marketing. Sit with your team and brainstorm together to come up with unprecedented and exciting ideas.
You can also use your CRM (like HubSpot and Salesforce) and CMS systems (such as WordPress and Joomla) to get more content ideas. Pick one buyer persona at a time and try to stand in their shoes to get a bigger picture.
One great way is to try what is called a brain dump. You need to channel everything on your mind right now into some other medium. This medium can be anything from a simple journal to a software planner like Trello.
You can use all the technology in the world and there’s a fair chance that your content would still not be up to the mark. Writing is an art, so you’d better get those artists on your team! Look for people who have a knack for it besides having marketing expertise. And the most important lesson of all- Be original.
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” ― C.S. Lewis
