Content Marketing: Play to your Strengths & beat the Blank Page

Content Marketing: “Be More Goat”

See the mountain goat in the photo there? These guys are 100% at ease bounding around terrain that, quite frankly, gives me the heebie-jeebies. I met this one at around 2500 m altitude, bouncing neatly from rock to rock. For him, it’s as natural as breathing. For me it’s quite the opposite: I’m far outside of my comfort zone, in constant fear of falling head over heels off the mountain.

And that's my point today. Just because something comes easily and naturally to you, doesn't mean that it's easy & obvious to everyone else.

Quite the opposite, in fact: chances are that most people do not have the same expertise and skills that you have: that’s why they need you, after all.

The good news here for your content marketing is that often you can add real, genuine value for other people, simply by sharing the everyday hints, tips or processes that you know inside out.

5 Questions to get your Ideas Flowing

Ace Your Content Marketing: Be More Goat

5 Questions to Get Started

Sounds easy enough in theory, but what does it mean in practice? Here are 5 questions to help you get started on building up a bank of genuinely valuable content for your customers, that is unique to your brand. Better yet, this is content that is firmly founded in your own unique experience, world-view and expertise … all of which are, after all, the primary reasons that your customers should ultimately choose you.

1: What makes you passionate about your work or your brand?

Enthusiasm is infectious – in a good way! So ask yourself: why did you get into this business in the first place? What did you love about it; what did you want to achieve; who did you want to help? What got you interested enough, to go to the trouble of building your business around it? Because whatever that was, it’s going to be interesting to other people too. Share your passions. Share the stories, experiences or insights that make you tick, because those are the things that matter.

2: What are the questions that your customers most often ask you?

Making a list of these will show you where your insight can add most value. These are the worries, concerns or uncertainties that you are already helping people deal with on a one-to-one basis: so why not publish content that helps even more people to do the same. Think about how you would answer your customers’ questions face to face … then write it down.

3: Why do you offer your particular product or service?

Chances are, you designed your service or chose your product range to fit a particular customer need or to solve a problem that you are aware of. Flip that on its head, and you’ve found a particular need or problem that you are great at helping people to solve. Make a list of those needs or problems: they are great content topics for you and your brand.

4: What holds your customers back?

What worries or inhibits them in their buying or pre-buying decisions? Do you see them in your store struggling to choose between similar products? Are there product or service features that they may not fully understand or know how to use? Are they concerned about price or long-term value? Again, imagine the questions that they are asking in their heads: ‘Is this worth the price? Will it last? Do I need the bronze, or the silver service package?’ – and answer those.

5: What do you do every day, that could be transformed into valuable content?

Do you stay on top of trends in your industry? Share the best of the research and the most interesting articles that you find. Does your work create visible change or transformation? Whether you’re a beautician, a builder, a website designer or a weight-loss consultant, visual before-and-after content can be a great way of telling your story and demonstrating the style and focus of your work. Do you talk to business owners within a particular industry or sector? Share their profiles & stories. Do you travel in the course of your work? Share photos or videos from the places you visit! Whatever you’re doing within your workflow, the chances are that there are other people out there who will benefit from the opportunity to see it through your eyes.

Embrace your Strengths: Be More Goat

To wrap up, then: when you're creating content for your brand, don’t underestimate your skills and strengths. What’s easy or obvious to you is not necessarily obvious to everyone else – and even if other people do know the theory of what you’d like to tell them, that doesn’t mean that your expert take on it won’t add some extra value.

If yours is the voice that helps the theory to click into practice for your viewer or reader, then you’ve added value right there and then by transforming abstract information into something that’s empowering and actionable.

So start with the things you're good at: the skills you've learned; the experience & insight you've gained - and share those. Because those are your value. It doesn’t need to take hours of research to prove that you’re unique: your experience, insight & perspective are the things that make you uniquely qualified to offer your product or service to your customer. The more generously you can share them, the more chance your customer has to like & trust you.

Embrace your strengths & insights. Be more goat.