How to create a powerful content marketing strategy
Have you heard the saying Content is King?
Firstly, what does that even mean? And secondly, it should probably read, content is queen.
Brands and businesses can be so focused on content but what if the content being created isn’t having impact?
It’s time to look at your overall content strategy, ask the big questions and maybe even wipe the slate clean and start again. There is absolutely no point in creating content for the sake of content. We have to forget the idea that content is about vanity metrics like followers, likes, or comments. It’s absolutely not. It’s about human connection and emotion and also about what moves the needle for your specific business objectives.
It is not about capturing people’s attention in the muddle of the million bits of data we consume each day. So often, there are conversations of “we’ve got just 3 seconds to capture that person’s attention” but isn’t it all just a bit gross? Trading time and attention, and even the word ‘capture.’ You better believe that I’ve said those very words myself but I’d very much like to scrunch them up into a tiny ball and toss them in the bin.
What it’s really about is creating and adding real value to people’s lives, actually making a difference to their business and to them as humans.
Don’t get me wrong – content is really important, but it is less important than the notion of connecting with a human in a meaningful way. That’s so often what we lose when we’re just creating content for the sake of it or because we think we have to.
Here’s some of the questions that are worth asking when you start building out or rethinking your content strategy:
- Why are we doing what we’re doing? Or why do we even exist? (Think: company values, mission)
- Who is this for?
- How do we want people to feel?
- What would make us feel connected, as people, to this idea?
- What are the things we care most about as a group of people, as a community?
- How might we go find the people who care about the same things we care about?
Okay, so how do we build content from here?
Simon Sinek was right – let’s Start with Why
Why are we doing what we’re doing? Or why do we even exist?
To get to your why – you have to understand the existence of your organisation. Now you might feel this is going deep for a content strategy… but how can you possibly create content that connects with people if all you’re talking about is what you do and the benefits of what you do and that people should buy this thing?
Try asking why 5 times.
- Why do you exist?
- Why do you do that?
- Why?
- Why?
- Why?
What’s your answer?
Write that down – that becomes part of your purpose, vision and mission statements.
Who is this for?
When you set out or when the company you work for started – who were you looking to help? Who were you serving? We can get quite lost in the jargon of target demographics, archetypes, personas – all the buzzwords without real connection.
Maybe you started off to help people truly relax. Who needs to relax the most? How do we help them relax?
Maybe you started off trying to help people create transparency across their work projects.
Maybe you started off just ultimately trying to make life more fun for people.
Or maybe you wanted to find a way to connect people from all over the world together.
No matter where you started, this is the place to come back to. Forget target markets and personas, just think about the human you’re serving. Who are they? What do they need most? How can you be there for them in their moment of need? How do you serve them in the best way that you possibly can? How can you go above and beyond for that human?
Once you nail this you can use amazing frameworks that exist (like deep diving into buyer personas) but until you’ve got the depth the frameworks aren’t super meaningful.
How do you want them to feel?
Connecting people to a brand is more about connecting them to meaning, to something that they can believe in. A feeling of, ‘aaaahhh, I found my people’ or ‘I belong here’.
So when they come to your brand how do you want them to feel?
Here’s some ideas:
- Heard
- Seen
- Like they belong
- Like they have a voice
- Connected
- Loved
- Inspired
- Excited
- Blissful
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that recognition and validation are deeply connected to a person’s needs of self-esteem.
What are the ways that we will help people feel these feelings? What will help people feel connected to us?
It’s about the way we are, the way we speak, how accountable we are. It’s about creating from this emotive space. Gary Vee reckons we need to create 64 pieces of content a day to cut through – and honestly, first of all – I say eff that – who even has the time for that.
Let’s go quality over quantity.
Let’s go with connection over frequency.
Let’s go adding real value over throwing more shite out into the ether.
When you look at some of the best content creators in the world, they’re truly helping people. It doesn’t matter what industry or influencer you look at – what they’ve nailed is the connection to humans, to add value in some way. That’s how you create a powerful content strategy – you make it about the people first.
- Cue, Dr Nicole LePera – The Holistic Psychologist – 5.4 million followers, and distributing some of the most life-changing content to help people understand themselves and help them choose to change their own behaviour.
- Cue, The Daily Aus – a new way to consume news in Australia, bite-size, social media lead content that helps millennials and gen Zs get their news quickly, where they are.
- Cue, Milkrun – those baddies just launched and create amazing food recipe content that literally saves the day, whilst also delivering their goods in 10 mins.
- Cue, Cain Kerner – a guy who literally eats fruit and gives life advice and coined it, fruit for thought. Genius.
All of these brands or individuals have one thing in common – they create powerful content to truly help people. Help people learn about themselves, help people get news where they actually are and quickly, help people get food and make food in easy, fun and bite size videos or just think a little differently and learn about some whack AF fruit…
So, what’s your thing that you’re trying to help people connect with?
What are the things we care most about as a group of people, as a community and how do we find those people?
When you think about gathering a community of people around whatever it is that you’re helping them solve – you have to think about what brings people together.
You know when you’re at a concert and you get this energy, this vibe around the music, you look around you and you see other people swaying, dancing and singing and you know, you’re all in this together.
How do you create this with whatever it is that you’re doing?
Even if you sell pencils… you can find ways to bring them to life through the art they create, the words they write. The letters that have been written from person to person by this pencil. How they offer a way to create visual language to make people feel something. It’s not just a pencil, it’s what the pencil can do for you and what you can create from it, how you can truly express yourself at the tip of this little pencil.
And just think – the whole world has potential to be a pencil creator because the whole world gets to express. But maybe, just maybe there’s specific kinds of humans who care most about this kind of expression, artists, writers, people who are nostalgic for the past. Gather those people, share their content and creations. To all the pencil lovers out there, the artists, the creators, the doodlers, the illustrators – I salute you.
So, there you have it creating a powerful content marketing strategy starts with:
- Why are we doing what we’re doing? Or why do we even exist?
- Who is this for?
- How do we want people to feel?
- What would make us feel connected, as people, to this idea?
- What are the things we care most about as a group of people, as a community?
- How might we go find the people who care about the same things we care about?
Want to learn more about how to create content, we’ve got some great resources or you can even book a workshop with us.
- Content Marketing Strategy Template
- Content Calendar Template
- Learn about some Account Based Marketing Content stuff
- Just want to have a yarn?
