How to do content marketing without turning into a corporate, greedy monster
In the previous article, I discussed some differences between the brand-centric and customer-centric approaches to content marketing. Specifically, I highlighted the need to provide value to whoever is consuming the content, the importance of being genuine and originality.
I would like to expand on that by looking further at some other mainstream marketing techniques — what they do poorly and perhaps even how to do it right.
Metrics
Between the brand-centric and customer-centric, a big distinction is also how you treat your metrics: are they a means or an end to your business? Do you produce content, sell and base your entire business model to meet your KPIs, or to help your audience?
There often comes a point in a company where KPIs stop being indicators and instead become objectives. And in order to reach those ever-increasing numbers, each time they look for more and more ways to reach new people. This results in a drop in the actual content quality.
One of the biggest mistakes I see today with inbound marketing is the over-optimization of the content. Businesses who pride themselves on being data-driven are quickest to fall to this problem.
There is a balance that companies tend to forget, or even ignore from the start, between content optimization and personalization. In order for the Google algorithms to like your content, and to make the readers/viewers perform the desired action, you have to reshape the entire piece of media. This ends up making it like a commercial, instead of a genuine message or helpful advice.
Ironically, you’re supposed to phrase it at the same time like you’re talking with a friend. If you don’t optimize your content, it won’t reach your audience at all. And that is not good for either of you. What good is helpful content, if it doesn't help anyone?
It is this balance that is difficult to reach on its own.
Buyer Persona
Similar errors arise when creating a buyer’s persona. Most companies create them without actually doing anything with them afterward. They think that simply having it will improve their performance, make them more modern and get them in touch with their potential audience.
Personas themselves will never generate increased traffic, let alone revenue. A well-made persona should result from a healthy audience and your interaction with it, not a method. However, actually acting on your buyer persona has an enormous potential to recognize, reach and understand your (potential) client base.
Sadly, instead of treating your clients as individuals, we just throw them into one of the buyer-persona basket and follow the workflow for that group.
“Marketing and advertising was once predicated on spin. You didn’t sell the steak; you sold the sizzle. The sizzle is no longer enough.”
Sue Unerman
Automation
Similarly to a buyer persona, I feel like a big reason companies look favorably on automation (at least when it comes to marketing) because it’s supposedly modern and effective.
The idea itself has some weight behind it — for it enables you to deal with tasks you otherwise couldn’t. But we do this despite the fact that personalization is a great way for content to stick with your audience. It makes them more probable to convert.
Often content marketers either insist or are pressured to release perfect material, be it a booklet, video or a social media post. But will that marginal improvement even have a noticeable impact? More often than not, the more time and resources you put into material, the bigger the chances it will underperform.
Now, that isn’t an excuse to release subpar content. Just consider whether dragging the production for weeks or even months will bring the desired effect. Isn’t it better for the content to reach a month before, so people can benefit from it, you learn from it and will make it better next time.
If you strive for perfection, you will learn little besides how far your patience and endurance for creating content go.
On Brand
A quick note on brand: It has become very common for companies to have poorly defined brand identity, despite them thinking the opposite. Too often the brand leans solely on the vision of the key decision-makers. The problem is that if those are not well defined and consistently updated, sales and marketing teams will take it upon themselves to execute day-to-day business through their best judgment.
The upper management then expects for everyone to work according to their vision, as if employees would be able to read thoughts. The issue then isn’t in the poor performance of marketers, but the lack of established brand identity.
“Businesses must realise that their audiences associate with human qualities rather than products.”
Ioannis Ioannou
Your Tone
A standard in today's marketing is banking on a person’s emotions. Especially desire and fear. People buy what they want, rather than what they need. And what better way to make them buy something (not just something, but your own product), than to create a sense of urgency.
Here’s the thing though: It is VERY easy that you end up sounding like a pandering opportunist — a corporate entity instead of a person. It makes you sound arrogant, impolite and extortive. This creates the sense of talking TO your audience (or even down to), rather than WITH them. It appears as if you are better than them and they know how you should lead your life.
What’s worse, sometimes the conventional method of convincing your consumers make you sound straight out desperate. Like you are willing to beg and grovel for their attention and their pity.
One of the main examples are all of those prompts on YouTube similar to “Smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe and hit that bell button!” all while competing who makes the most bestial scream.
More and more people use video to make purchasing decisions and, indeed, prompts like that apparently make viewers more likely to perform such actions.
That doesn’t mean you have to make yourself look like an idiot. Furthermore, it’s 2020; I’m sure that the majority of YouTube users know how to use it. So you don’t need to show them how it works — the quality of your content will convince them quicker than any charismatic calls and fake smiles.
Like in real life, urgency is a powerful tool in marketing as well. However, it rarely leaves much space for common decency. Apparently, we can’t afford a luxury like that (or rather, we don’t want to).
Reviews and Testimonials
Let’s not kid ourselves, both testimonials and reviews are EXTREMELY important when it comes to your product. But let me ask you, have you ever seen a negative or even neutral testimonial on any business website? Probably not.
And that’s what’s missing. Not highlighting negative reviews necessarily, but to stop yourself from cherry-picking only those reviews you like. Of course companies would want to feature positive things their buyers have to say about them or their product. It’s always the same.
That’s why more often than not, those testimonials and reviews rarely bring any value. It’s not even worth reading them, since you can immediately summarize it:
“It’s great!”
How to work around it? Feature a review that isn’t all sunshine and sparkles. Highlight some that might mention who this product is for (or even better, who is it NOT for) or feature some 3 stars reviews.
Even better, if you’re selling your product via 3rd party sites and platforms, you can embed reviews directly onto your website, without flowering anything. This will give you much-needed authenticity.
Hide and Seek
How many times has your business lied to your customers? Rarely, I hope. Yet every such occurrence drastically damages your standing with your audience. Even simple lies.
During these times of COVID-19, webinars have become more and more produced and consumed form of content. You’ve probably noticed it too. Businesses are quick to announce and promote their own to get their piece of the webinar pie. And quite often they invite you with messages like:
“Hurry! The number of seats left is limited.” or “The registration will soon close!”
Okay, let’s get one thing straight: unlike the actual theatres or cinemas, webinars do not utilize a certain number of available seats in a conventional sense. Or even any sense at all.
One of the chief advantages of an online, live webinar is that there can be as many viewers as possible. In the vast majority, there is no actual limitation to the number of viewers. If there is, it is from the side of the platform that hosts the webinar, but if a company chose that kind of platform, it’s doing itself a disservice (At least they could quickly search for one of their idolized lists of the best webinar platforms). It’s worth mentioning that some companies do limit the number of viewers in order to keep it manageable and potentially have a live discussion or Q&A.
Similarly, they “threaten” for the registration to close soon, despite often being open still during the webinar itself (I wonder where those limited seats went).
While such a little lie isn’t meant to cause much damage, it does inevitably make you appear as either untrustworthy or incompetent.
Another thing that diminishes trust in you is when you attempt to hide some information about your product. A typical example would be cost and price, especially in B2B. There it is more common to invite them to a call or to offer a demo session.
Here’s the thing: Price is usually THE most important factor when it comes to making a purchasing decision. And what is the first reaction one usually gets in this case? In my experience, something along the line “They try to hide something from me.”
Example: You’re deciding between two restaurants to go to. You’re checking the menu beforehand and one restaurant doesn’t have prices listed. Unless you are a huge advocate for taking risks or you’re loaded with money, chances are you’ll go to the other one.
This, once again, drops the level of trust in you and will inevitably lead your customers to search for your competition instead.
Gated Content
There is a heated debate going on about this: Should you hide your content behind a form or any other barrier, in order to get something in return? When should you?
Of course, there are pros and cons here as well, so I’ll just give you my best guideline: If the file is too large to attach it to an email, then you can gate it. The size of the file implies that (hopefully) some decent effort went into making it and that it’s of good quality. This applies to ebooks, example files and similar content.
And videos? Remember when I said that video and YouTube are more and more important in today’s business? By not uploading it there and making it public, you are depriving yourself of a potential audience and their goodwill.
More and more, people are getting aware of the value of their contact information. And by now, they will ponder longer whether they want to share it for a piece of unknown content that may not even be that useful to them. At least in bookstores, you can skim through the entire book before purchasing it.
“Many companies pay lip service to the customer being king, but they are certainly not rolling out the red carpet for them; they are not putting their experience first.”
Sue Unerman
The Point
Recently, I’ve read in a certain book about marketing the following sentence: “If the copy makes you spend money, it’s a good copy.”
Let that sink in.
Of course, there is some truth to that. Every company wants to make money. But I would like to think that businesses have a fiduciary duty not just to their investors, but to their clients as well.
If you want to take a client-centered approach, the point of your content should be solely built with the intent to help educate and improve the quality of life. It is very easy to notice between copies that were made with different intents.
Contrary to popular belief, people are not as daft as marketers sometimes want them to be. Nor can you predict, target or treat all customers solely based on your data, patterns and statistics. It is a tradeoff between professionalism and personality. Where your business stands within this spectrum is an integral part of your brand.
Many companies lie to themselves that they do inbound marketing, while it is only nicely camouflaged outbound marketing. If the point of your content is to convince, persuade (or even deceive) people into buying your product, that is still outbound marketing.
Instead of making your content consumers do something, you should instead only provide the tools for them to act on their own. That is what inbound marketing is.
The entire point of inbound marketing is to move the initiative of providing business from you to your potential leads themselves. Let THEM find you, let THEM contact you, let THEM buy from you.
Rarely should content convince people to buy from you NOW. The point of it is for them to notice you, to keep you in mind and (most importantly), once they do want a solution to their problem, you are their first choice.
In the end, it is all about balance. It is up to your brand to define how heavily you want to lean to either approach. Marketing can and should do a lot of good for a customer and business, just make sure you remain a decent person while doing so.
Best wishes.
Alex
