[MUSIC] Content marketing is one of those elephants that has no shortage of blind man surrounding it to tell us what it's about. We do have different definitions. Here's one that I've used in the past. Content marketing is the strategic creation of text, imagery, audio or video, that delivers a relevant and interesting message to a customer or a prospect while at the same time paving the way for a sale. That's a bit abstract and wordy. I want to unpack that a little bit, and just talk a little bit today about some of the elements that make content marketing work, so that you can have a high level view of it. Have no fear, we're going to get a lot more specific in the sessions to come. But for today, I want to keep it high level and just talk about some of the things that make content marketing work well. And some of the things that actually make it marketing and not just the production of content for a PR purpose. The first thing you need with content, if it's going to work, is it has to move the audience in some ways. In a copy blogger, we talk, typically, about audience rather than talking about prospects or leads. An audience is made of people who are at a lot of different stages in how they are connected to a company. So, it includes people who are prospects, includes people who are leads, have some interest but are not ready to buy. It includes people who are already customers. It includes people who are not in the market for that product or service, but they know somebody who is. Or they write about the space, or they're just well connected on a social site like Facebook and can spread the content to the person who is going to become a customer. So, content marketing has to do something for that audience. It has to move them in some way, and it starts with having to earn attention. You need, as a professional content marketer, to be really aware of a pretty widespread corporate and business attitude of entitlement. A lot of companies out there just have a very hard time remembering that they're not entitled to anybody's attention just because they have a project, just because they have a service, just because they have an advertising budget. Every company's CEO, every company's founder, every company's VP of marketing, thinks that that company's story is fascinating. It's your job as the marketer to actually make that story fascinating to the audience. So you have to fight that attitude of entitlement and that idea that you are somehow entitled to anybody's attention. You're never entitled to the attention of your audience. You have to earn it everyday. And there's another side to this which is that yes, you actually can move your audience even if your topic is what most people would considered boring. So, certain topics people think of as boring and certain topics people think of as being exciting. And a lot of people think that maybe a topic like dentistry or accounting is not an interesting topic. Or mechanical engineering, not an exciting topic. Every topic is interesting to the audience that is relevant for that content. But you have to use some skills as a writer. You have to use techniques like humor, or stories. Or use the frustration of your audience with problems that come up day in and day out in their topic. Everything we do as human beings creates many stories. And you have to seek these out for your content. Especially for the topics that people don't think of as interesting topics. Now, here's the thing. If your content isn't successful, if it's not getting audience attention or keeping that attention, it might not be good enough. And how can we tell the content is worth consuming? It's worth consuming if people consume it. It's worth consuming if people are reading it, listening to the audio, watching the video and sharing it, giving it exposure to a wider audience. So, that leads to the third thing that works, that makes content marketing work, which is it has to have some spark. The biggest content problem that I see is cookie cutter content, paint by numbers kind of content. So we're going to teach you structure and formula in this course. But it's your job as the artist, if you will, to find the spark. Somewhere in your organization is somebody who has a passion for this company, for this project, for this non profit, whatever it might be. It might be the founder, it might be a sales person. It might be a support person, it might be a customer. There's somebody in the organization that has that spark, that has that passion, and that really understands why what you're writing about or recording about matters. And you need to find that person. You need to find that person who cares desperately and who can show you where the spark is. And if there's nobody in the organization who plays that role, and I'm not saying this to be flipping in any way, you probably need to find another job. Somebody's gotta know why this matters. This course is part of your training to be the scribe of your organization, the voice of the organization. And this is actually a pretty big deal. So, as the content marketer, as the writer, as the scribe, you need to insert yourself. You need to be part of everything. Be curious about everything going on in his organization. And in fact, you want to become a lifelong student of just everything, full stop. Pop culture, art, music, literature, technology, it's all material. And every writer knows this, but I think sometimes we think that we hang that up when we go into the professional world, we don't. It's just as important to the professional as it to the, quote unquote, creative writer. Because you are a creative writer as a content marketer.
