There comes a point in everyone’s content marketing strategy where you just want to take a nap.
That point where you yawn at the overwhelming boredom that has occurred. More importantly, the overwhelming boredom you feel about doing it again and again and, oh my god, again!
However, it is during these times we must set an alarm clock in our content marketing to wake up our marketing strategy. WAKE UP!
We have all been there: the sales letter where you want to curse the Norse Gods of bad humor, the video that makes Greek Tragedy looking excitingly upbeat, or perhaps the repetitive blog that makes Roman Senators look like oratorical legends.
It is ok! You can say it with me if it makes you feel better. What matters is that you repeat the words below to kick the funk out of your marketing slam-dunk.
“Hello my name is (fill in the blank)! I have produced some really boring marketing in my day. It is ok! I know by admitting this I am making a pledge to clean out my content for my readers, my clients, family, friends, and most importantly myself.”
Wow! I certainly feel better. How about you?
Now for those who may be wondering why this pledge is so important, let me back up for a second.
Your content marketing strategy is –
the way you use online content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, webinars, and other medium to drive quality traffic and build relationships with your prospects.
While this might seem like a herculean task, the information below will help you improve your odds of success.
Fortunately, we have a 6-step plan that can accomplish this task. Even better, you already completed the first step. You did repeat the words above, correct? Awesome! High Five!
Content Marketing Strategy: The Other Steps
Step Two: Be Real! No, not whatever wives of whatever town gets the most ratings real. When you use content marketing, you need to talk like yourself. Be the person you are when you are not marketing.
For example, I tell bad jokes. I know, I know. If you have read this far into this post you would be shocked and surprised I could ever tell a bad joke. It is true, however. Ask my wife, she will tell you.
However, when I tell bad jokes my writing gets better. You should have seen it before. Yack! My style developed from how I talk in everyday life. You need to do this as well. Write like you speak. Act naturally like you do without a camera.
Step Three: Tell your nerves, you do not want them around. Tell them to “shoo fly don’t bother me.”
We get so nervous when we create content. How does everything sound? Will we piss anyone off? What happens if no one reads our material? So much consternation about things we cannot control. Insane! At a certain point, you have to tell your nerves: “nerves, I would appreciate it if you stopped this nonsense.” Tell the butterflies, you are their boss.
Step Four: Look at your content through the eyes of your readers. We all have our own point of view. However, when you use content marketing strategies for small businesses, you need to consider the readers point of view first. What will inspire them to take action with your content? How can you motivate them to do more with the information you provided. Can you provide them with easy steps to start? The biggest is question is how you will benefit your readers, so they come back to your site repeatedly.
Step Five: How can you provide massive value? In days of yore, salesmen would walk down the street with a briefcase in one hand, and a fair amount of rubbish tales in another. Sales today happen, because the buyer believes in the value of the items purchased. To do this any service provider worth their salt, must provide the value that warrants the purchase price. If they do not, then they will limit their ability to succeed.
Step Six: Do something different with every post. In my social media community on Google Plus, I designed the logo as follows: Be Bold, Be Brave, Tell Us Your Name, and How Can We Help? It is the ugliest logo you have probably ever looked upon. I created it in Photoshop in 5 minutes. However, it works.
Everyone else is using generic pictures as part of their social media and content marketing plan. I use some weird saying, and now we have over 800 community members in two months.
Content Marketing Strategy: Be Yourself!
In the end, being boring is about being yourself. As you might have inferred from this post, I do not write like most bloggers. My grammar can be a bit rough, but gee whiz do I have style. In the end, you learn that the more you write like yourself, the more clients you find that are just like you. Hopefully, those are the ones you want to work with in the first place.
Share your experiences in the comments below.
Are you ready to learn more about developing your content marketing strategy?
You know it’s so interesting to read a post like this because you get inside someone else’s head and see what they’re thinking.
Like the part where you mention pp get nervous about their content and how it’s going to sound. I get nervous about other things but never “my voice.” I figure the peeps that don’t like me, shouldn’t be on my blog anyway. 🙂
What works for me as far as not getting stale, is that I don’t get content out a lot.
Now, I am consistent.. I put content out regularly, but I don’t fret over putting it out in quantity.
Typically I’ll create one blog post per week and send out one newsletter (broadcast the post via aWeber)
But for my new blog, I’m actually only posting twice monthly because I’m diversifying my content production and of course it all takes time.
From my experience, it’s the consistency that matters the most, not the amount.
~darlene
Consistency is huge Darlene. However, some people avoid writing altogether, because they are afraid of putting their content in front of others.
It is more about not feeling worthy of the post, than writing regularly. The consistency helps to remove the nagging feeling of doing something wrong.
Hey Andy!
Love your site.
Well if pp are afraid to put their content out there.. what the heck are they doing on the Internet with a website?
At BlogBoldly we teach not to just blog, but to blog BOLDLY and stand out from the crowd. Go bold or go home! LOL
~ darlene 🙂
Hi, Andy. Great post! I love all the points, especially the fourth and the sixth. Looking at your post through the eyes of readers is not that easy because we always like what we have done. But if you can do that, you can write great posts. And ‘Being Different’ works most of the time. Thanks for the post.
Achari,
Much appreciated! When you write for others, you really need to write for others. There is no way around the matter. Being different is one more facet of writing for others.
Andy
Andy, I like your style, That’s what it is all about. We all have a different way to tell our stories or to teach others new things. Some are more storyteller types and others are short and sweet. Each have our own little flair to add to it too. I think it’s great to mix up how to present your content, whether with images, videos or slideshares. That way it never gets boring.
Lisa,
Thank you very much! Appreciate that you think I have style!
We each have our own style that defines the content we write. Because of this style, we have to practice using our own voice when we write.
Andy
Definitely some great tips here!
I’ve been infusing my personality into my marketing for a while but not consistently. Sometimes I feel like I’m not being “professional” and other times when I feel I am, I feel boring. I end up going back and forth between my two main styles.
Thanks for the great post!
-Gabe Johansson
Gabe,
Finding the right style for your writing voice does not happen overnight. I am constantly adding new ideas and insights to my style. The important thing is to grow, and let it mature naturally. Do not force your content.
Andy
For past few days, I had started to feel like Darren Rowse who doesn’t need to write for making money…But…I realized that there is a long long distance that I have to travel before reaching his level…So I’m back to my posting schedule…
Darren Rowse is one of the best bloggers out there today. However, he spent a lot of time in the trenches writing before he was able to build his credibility. The business he created did not come instantaneously. Instead, it came with a lot of hard work and persistence. Keeping to a schedule is important if you want to succeed. Do not live like Darren Rowse. Instead, find your style, so you can improve upon what he does.
I have no idea why but reading this made me smile and also reminded me of a support group meeting.The whole its okay to be you thing really got through this time becuase you were so …real.It was refreshing to see it not so polished .Like I can do the same at mine.Thanks
Marty,
Thanks! Glad you smiled. Did not realize that I had the support group mojo going, but if you liked it that is great.
On a side note, “I am not polished?” 🙂
Andy
lol I don’t mean in a bad way .What I mean is you sound like a real person and not like commercial or cars salesman like some bloggers do.It was a wierd way of making a complement
Rightly stated!!!
What is a better way to connect with the audience than engaging them in something that holds some value. Mixing things to captivate the visitors, using blogs, articles, video etc diversify things is a great way that can help you leave a mark among internet junkies.
Thanks for this share.
Rashmi,
I like that word: captivate! Captivate the reader! Captivate the imagination! Captivate your content!
Andy
Yeah!!!
If you can give something back to your audience that is enticing and not just bland mix of rehash ideas, you has WON.
That’s my personal opinion.
Perfect article Nathan for time like these! 🙂
I say this because way to many blogs are putting up worthless content and content that won’t be read any anyone. Wasting time!
I say create content worth their time and content that will satisfy their needs.
Excellent article man!
Thank you very much Samuel! Glad to help combat worthless content.
In most of the cases i do quiet fast, my content marketing is only article writing and post writing, i am not into video and media creation yet, and even though i always have great idea on what to write about, but as you described it it really make me want to lie down fast 🙂
Joseph,
You do not have to do video marketing and other content marketing if your writing is persuasive and captivating to the readers.
Not sure what you mean by “lie down fast”?
Andy
He’s referencing the wanting to fall asleep part with the lying down part I believe. I usually don’t make it that far- I just wake up still in my chair with a kink in my neck. There’s a bad joke in there somewhere, help me out here!
I liked the way you presented the facts. I agree with you that being yourself is very important for writing in your blog. Otherwise it gets tedious pretending to be someone you are not and ultimately it takes the fun out of it.
Sudha,
It definitely does get tedious pretending to be someone else. After a while you want to escape and just be yourself. That is where you create your best content.
Andy
I have read many things about SEO and Blogging but Content Marketing seems to be very Ignored area where I think you have produced a Very Good article. I wanna Know whether too much explanations in the Article can lead to bad Content Marketing?
There should be any fixed content marketing strategy , if you are providing high quality stuff to your readers day in and day out.
Having a content marketing strategy in place first is key. Otherwise, it will be challenging to continually come up with great content.
Well, I think it depends on niche. For some niche where you need to post more tech news, you need to be aware of the news and press releases.
But content marketing should be all about providing the necessary info and being good at it. No one would care if you just write an article about your own product. “Build trust and then sell” should be the motto.
Great content builds trust all on it’s own.
Yes Andy, that is exactly what I meant. If someone writes an article promoting themselves or their product then it is definitely of no use.
If they provide no value and just sell it is of no use. There are some who are great at selling and providing value at the same time.
It is also important to create a variety of popular content types. Simply creating text based posts may not be sufficient to get the expected results. To get the most out of content marketing it is important to have a mix of content types in your portfolio e.g. Infographics, articles, eBooks, Whitepapers, Videos, and more.
If you can create various types of content definitely do that. Otherwise, focus on creating the best possible text posts.
Ye sone really needs an excellent content Strategy , such as you could see the examople of guest posts , to be roughly specific 😉
I have read many things about SEO and Blogging but Content Marketing seems to be very Ignored area where I think you have produced a Very Good article i hope that go ahead article public.
Anil,
Thank you very much!
Andy
For me content marketing is really very boring. It takes too much effort, and an organized way of working. Nice post.
Thanks for sharing it.
Hi Andy, none of those contents are boring but we gotta write about facts. Once we know the fact, there is no need to be scared of giving the wrong answer.
Most people won’t get straight into the point but they’re going around and around to make their posts have more words but they’re actually making their readers fall asleep. Just like the quote above, they’re all action words in it.
So the important really is action, get right into point and use “should, you wanna this…” LESS
Thank you – Ferb
In fact, up to 91 percent of B2B marketers now use content marketing. When a business does it right, content marketing drives traffic, generates quality leads, builds brand awareness and can be the enterprise’s social marketing lifeblood.
Great piece, Andy.
There’s nothing I hate more than boring content; which is the exact reason I quit doing SEO. I felt like SEO restrained me and I didn’t fee l free to truly write in a way that expressed myself. I think that my writing style now is rather engaging now and my audience/community seems to like.
It’s important that your content reflects your personality and who you are as a person.
Don’t be afraid to be yourself, even if it isn’t professional. People will be drawn to your originality and your authentic nature.
Thanks for sharing your insights with us; I appreciate it!
Ti
I dont feel that my content makes the peer to sleep. but i do not understand even then i give a good content , why the traffic is not increasing in my site and the users bounce rate is getting high.??
As marketers today, you are creating content at an unprecedented rate. The vast majority of this—from copy to blogs, ebooks, and white papers—is being consumed on your website, in your mobile app, and in social media. So how do you write effectively for the online consumer? We’ll look at how your customers approach your online content, discuss examples, and provide practical guidelines for writing great content.
Unfortunately, writing good content is not enough, taking into account the latest Google updates. Having authority in the niche is a must, but it takes a lot of time to build a strong name. From my point of view, long term projects are the best ones.
Hi Andy,
I like the way you post your blog, I am much more enlighten about blog posting. thank you for this and Have a great one!
LOL… I tell bad jokes too Andy… glad to know there’s hope for me! 🙂
I think step 4 is invaluable – for me it’s one of the most important ones. Looking at what you produce through the eyes of your current (and potential) readers gives you a good indication of whether the content is actually valuable or not.
Great advice. I am the worst at clamming up when I start to write content.
I tell people all day long to be themselves, and I read there stuff, and I can see clear as day… no man loosen up a bit. Then I start to write my stuff, and I’m like is that PC?
Thanks for the reminder.
Jason
I find your article to be very interesting. The internet really has a way of bending the truth sometimes. Being yourself is really more important, it’s always easier to relate with.
Hi Andy Nathan My problem right now seems to be that people are clicking through on ads but sales are not generated once they reach my affiliate partners websites. Not sure what much I can do about since I don’t have control of the content on their site.
I have no idea why but reading this made me smile and also reminded me of a support group meeting.Thanks,,,,,,,!
Hi Andy!
I think your article really summed up the problems that I have. I also think a million times about the content I’m creating and if it sounds good and if people will read it and like it and so far and so on. It was great hearing – or rather reading – about someone who has made a similar experience.
The same thing applies to the creative artwork in photoshop! I had to smile to myself when I read about you creating an ugly banner in five minutes! 😉 However, when I went to your google+, all I could see was another generic picture. Where is the ugly funny banner you created?
Cheers,
M. Therese
Hi Andy !
That is really interesting post with great tips for marketing . I liked the point third the most
Tell your nerves, you do not want them around. Tell them to “shoo fly don’t bother me.”
and also the fact of being real as being fake does not work in todays clever world and people appericiate it when you are real and honest
Great blog post Andy! I’m just getting started online and I think if I read posts like yours often enough it will be engrained in me to be REAL. Thanks for the tips!
Hello Andy
ya content is the main thing for blogger and reader both.It must be in interesting way as well as flow in the article is very important.Content marketing is one of the tedious job.But with a unique writing style,It is great.Nice sharing.