"You need a content-rich website." "Content is king." "It's all about the content." If you're in business, you're hearing how important your content is to your lead generation, brand-building, and (especially) profits. But...What are the guidelines for good, solid content -- especially as a strategy for long-term success? The "Content Lovers" of Epiphanies, Inc. reveal the insiders' scoop.
For business owners, lifestyle entrepreneurs, and otherwise savvy professionals, creating content to help get their message, mission, and vision OUT THERE can be daunting sometimes - especially if you don't fancy yourself a "writer" or some other media-producing maestro.
And sometimes, we make things more complicated than they have to be. Heck, as "The Content Lovers," we can obsess over this stuff like there's no tomorrow. It gets in the way of taking action, and moving forward with our business and vision.
With that in mind, we offer you these seven really good bits 'o advice for easily creating powerful and consistent content, regardless of whether you deliver it with text, audio, photos, or video. (Knowing, of course, we personally use this advice ourselves.)
1. Mine what you already have.
It's excavation, not creation. Take content you've already developed - like the answers you've given to clients in emails, phone calls, and in person - and use those to develop content. If one person's asking, others may be, too. Then, you not only look like an expert, but you never have to answer the question again!
2. Give 'em bite-size chunks.
We all do it - overwhelm people with the knowledge we can share about our business or field. But at a certain point, people's attention just turns off. Don't try to shove 50 tons of diamonds into a 5-pound sack. Offer seekers of your content bite-sized chunks of knowledge, and the option to go deeper.
3. Leverage other people's content to support your own ideas.
Ever hear marketers throw out headlines like, "What Steve Martin can teach you about your own marketing and branding"? They use the content generated around well-known events, ideas, people, and pop culture references as analogies to buttress their own messages. And you can do the same.
4. Use other people's content outright.
With appropriate permission, of course, and preferably with an opinion to share. As the person who's screening the entire realm of knowledge in your field, picking and choosing a select few to share with your audience makes you look like the expert who holds forth on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the information out there. Be the filter. Be the trusted resource.
5. It's about content over time.
Relationships don't happen overnight, in love or in business. By making a list for yourself of the ideas, magnets, and solutions of your business, you can authentically share new and helpful information over the long haul.
6. Good enough is good enough.
In economics, there's this thing called the Law of Diminishing Returns. In layman's terms, it says that at a certain point, the effort you put into improving something will cost you more than what you get out of that effort. It's the same with producing content. You can spend weeks, months, and years jiggering and editing and trying to get everything "just right." Or, you can send your content out on a catapult, where it can reach your Ideal Audience, so you can get to work on your next endeavor.
7. Be conscious (and conscientious!) about what you put out into the world.
People have a way of finding content months and years down the line. This can be a very good thing...or a very, very bad one. If you're less than impeccable with your word, it'll come back to bite you in the proverbial posterior. As Bogie said in Casablanca, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life." This is the Law of Attraction in action - what you focus on and put "out there" to the universe is what comes back to you. Act with honesty and integrity, and everything'll be a-okay.
Good luck, fellow content creator! No matter how you choose to get your content out there - newsletters, webinars, comic strips, whatever - these seven tips will help guide you through the process of making those all-important connections with your Ideal Audience.
Remember, people aren't sitting around trying to figure out ways to give you money. But they DO want to: learn, be entertained, find specific information, get more time, freedom, money, and pleasure, and especially AVOID PAIN AND MISERY. Help them do any or all of the above with your content, and they'll reward you for it.
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