Five Steps to Better Content Marketing

I've been creating content* online for over 18 years, from Geocities sites to my own blog, to today where I mostly focus on LinkedIN and YouTube professionally. I'm not sure when it was that this was called content and that people like me would be seen as creators, but I do know that a few years back, marketing influencer, Seth Godin proclaimed:

"Content Marketing is the only marketing left."

...so pretty much every marketer scrambled to put some sort of content marketing strategy in place. Unfortunately, most of these marketers didn't execute in a way that Godin would endorse and, instead, approached content like Greg Satell of Digital Tonto aptly put it:

"Many marketers treat content just like an ad, just in longer form."

So now, after a bunch of years of bungling about and getting no results, there are a bunch of people who claim that content marketing doesn't work.

But it does work for those who do it right. 

So, what differentiates a bad content strategy from a good one? In this week's video, I give the 5 steps toward creating a solid content strategy:

1. Know your audience (like, really know - NO personas!)
2. Set your goals (and line up your assets)
3. Find the sweet spot (where #1/#2 collide) + create your editorial voice
4. BE PATIENT - True engagement takes time and trust
5. Listen, learn, measure + adjust

I hope you enjoy the video. I'm taking more liberties with editing as I get comfortable with Final Cut. Where else will you find Pinky Pie, The Princess Bride, and Scrubs in one video?

And share YOUR content success stories below...I'd love to feature a list of wins in a future video or post. And yes, I'm happy to hear the content disasters, too!

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* as I say in the video, calling it 'content' still makes me very uncomfortable. I feel like it sucks the life out of it.