I love sweeping generalisations, especially when it comes to all things concerning women.
After all, nearly everything we do attracts condemnation (work, stay at home, opt out, lean in) so why not add “making sweeping generalisations” to the list?
So here goes: content marketing is the perfect marketing tool for women. It suits our temperaments, our strengths and our weaknesses.
Here’s why:
1. Shrinking violets bloom
I can say with some authority that women tend to undersell themselves. We are not as good at bragging as the blokes and we are not even good at simply stating what we know and what we do.
How do I know? Well, apart from the all the research out there, I have spoken to many women in business during my reporting career – or tried to. Too often, women put a bloke forward instead, and then they are baffled that so few women are quoted in the media.
Content marketing solves the problem. Using various kinds of content, women can demonstrate what they know through the stories they publish and the blogs they write. As the archive of stories grow, women can use it in two ways:
- To refer clients and potential clients to read and demonstrate their expertise
- To look at themselves in moments of doubt and bolster their confidence
2. We are so good at relationships
Let’s face it: women are the relationship supremos. Yes, there is the odd bloke who doesn’t need a lot of help to be more human, but they are horribly few and far between.
Content marketing is all about relationships, so women are going to be rockstars at it. Firstly, you need to have a lot of empathy and insight into the concerns of your customers and potential customers to create the right content. That’s a big tick for us.
Then you need to write conversationally, engage with your readers and open up a dialogue with them. You need incorporate their ideas and criticisms into your content marketing strategy, and be flexible and responsive. That’s a lay-down misere (I’ve put in this link in case you don’t play the card game 500).
3. We are great collaborators
Publishing regular content, including your own, is a team effort. At the very least you are going to need a proofreader to check your work before it is published, but usually we also need:
- A production person, who puts the stories on the website and creates your e-newsletter
- An editor to help create your schedules and manage the process
- Some writers, freelance or in-house, so that there are some different “voices” featured on your website
- Someone technical to help sort out problems and to create reports (analytics) that show which are your most popular stories and topics
Women are great at participative decision-making, as the management consultants McKinsey & Company discovered in their report, Women Matter 2: Female Leadership: A competitive edge in the future. It’s a quality that we excel in.
If that is not enough to inspire all you gals to get straight to work on your content marketing, why not check out some chicks who are leading the way: 20 women who rock content marketing.