By Kath Walters
When it comes to content marketing, the stories you publish work a lot harder than you might realise. A content marketing program does a lot more for your brand than share some of your knowledge and experience with your readers.
I notice that marketers often worry that content marketing messages are not explicit. I’d argue that they are, but we convey those messages differently: they are shown, not told.
However, I understand that marketers need to be clear when they are sitting at the executive table. And, since it’s quite possible to name the marketing messages conveyed by publishing good stories on a regular basis, I’m going to do so in this post. Your content marketing program conveys that your brand is:
1. Reliable – we publish a new story every week/fortnight/month without fail.
2. Understanding – we publish stories that readers find relevant and helpful.
3. Caring – even though our readers are not yet customers, we are providing valuable information. For our customers, we provide valuable info, whether or not they are buying from us right now.
4. Ready and waiting – just in case readers forget about us after making a purchase, we pop up regularly in their inbox.
5. Trustworthy – we provide readers with all the info they need to make the right decision, whether or not we will benefit from that decision.
6. Respectful – we give readers the chance to unsubscribe if they do not find value in our content, and we have an opt-in process (we don’t sign them up without explicit consent).
7. Relevant – we stay abreast of hot issues and trends and share that with readers.
Seven solid brand values are conveyed before our readers even open our newsletters. Of course, we have to deliver timely, trusted and relevant (sticky) content. But, in a way, the value in the content is the icing on the cake.