6 Content Marketing Hacks for People Who Need to Get It Done. So for those of us who have businesses to run and lives to live, here are six content marketing hacks you can do right now to make tomorrow’s content better than today’s. (Confession: A lot of them are from my own blog, but….hey, this is what I do, and you’re who I write for.) But here’s a much more practical hack: Who buys your stuff? A word of caution: A lot of businesses — especially B2Bs — write for people who do what they do rather than the people who buy what they do. I did it myself…when I first started my business, I was writing for writers. There are a couple of big mistakes a lot of businesses make here: Talking over their heads: When you live, breathe, and eat something every day, it’s hard to remember that not everybody else does that, too. Remember that you’re writing for people. For most people you write for, their job is not their life. Base your writing on facts, not assumptions.
There are tons of books about content marketing. Heck, there are probably books about books about content marketing. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the blogs.
Bottom line…there’s enough content about content out there that it would take a lifetime to read. And a lot of it is really, really good. But not everybody has the time or inclination to spend every spare moment researching content marketing best practices. So for those of us who have businesses to run and lives to live, here are six content marketing hacks you can do right now to make tomorrow’s content better than today’s. And I’ve included resources for those of you who want to dig a little deeper. (Confession: A lot of them are from my own blog, but….hey, this is what I do, and you’re who I write for.)
Know your audience
The PhD-level strategy is to develop one or more customer personae that include everything from where your target customer lives to what kind of car they drive to how many kids they have. But here’s a much more practical hack: Who buys your stuff? And why?
A word of caution: A lot of businesses — especially B2Bs — write for people who do what they do rather than the people who buy what they do. I did it myself…when I first started my business, I was writing for writers. Until I realized that other writers weren’t going to hire me. That’s what a former boss of mine would have called a “blinding glimpse of the obvious.”
Once you know who your audience is, it’s time to make sure you’re speaking their language. There are a couple of big mistakes a lot of businesses make here:
- Talking over their heads: When you live, breathe, and eat something every day, it’s hard to remember that not everybody else does that, too. It can become almost impossible to remember not knowing what you know. But you pretty much have to.
- Starting too far down the sales funnel: If you assume readers are ready to buy when they’re really just learning what they don’t know, your content won’t resonate. Again, you have to meet them where they are.
Have a purpose
Have a purpose both for your overall content strategy and for each individual piece of content. If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, how will you know whether you’ve succeeded? If…
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