Unless you’re speaking their language
What people care about – almost exclusively – is themselves.
It’s a concept shared repeatedly in “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” one of the most successful business books ever.
“Become genuinely interested in other people.”
“Talk in terms of the other person’s interest.”
“Make the other person feel important – and do so sincerely.”
The message has gotten lost in the the ever expanding scramble to create content and campaigns that blanket potential audiences with information you want or think they need to have.
Problem is, it should be the other way around.
Make the other person feel important – and do so sincerely.
While businesses seem to have have finally started to understand the need to create their own original content (instead of just sharing the work of others), many if not most of them don’t truly understand why or of what type.
You can throw as much shite at the wall as you’d like – a mainstay in the world of marketing – but nothing is more effective or ultimately cost efficient than engaging your audience with customer-centric content that directly addresses their needs and interests.
In short, content created specifically for and delivered directly to the target audience in a way that directly benefits them – “sincerely.”
There’s a new math in town.
Check writers have always been and still are the biggest hurdle to doing things right because they are typically fixated on Return on Investment and not Return on Influence.
A company pays for services and there’s a direct expectation on what it’s going to get for its money. While check writers want empirical data, Return on Influence seldom works that way.
I typically works more like this. You wouldn’t dream of running an office without a modern phone system or without computers but can you like a direct revenue stream to either of those tools? No. You just understand it’s something you can’t do business without.
That’s exactly the case with having and managing the right content for all of your digital platforms.
Because businesses are so entrenched in the archaic principles of their ROI and not the ROI, companies that provide content creation/management have been more focused on meeting those numeric criteria than focusing on what the audience actually wants. They rush to create and record metrics and analytics they think will fill their client’s lust for numbers when the client (and far too often the agency itself) doesn’t fully comprehend what the numbers mean. Either out of ignorance or out of motivation to fulfill the client’s perceived need, even those claiming to be content providers are simply propagating a flawed value system. Instead of identifying and engaging individuals or target groups they churn out content focused more on volume and “key word density” than direct customer engagement.
Don’t get me wrong. Tracking is valuable, but numbers can be misleading and even drastically misunderstood.
How many hits did you get?
Case in point; I attended a sales meeting circa 1997. My mentor, John Thawley was one of the first corporate Web developers in the Detroit area (he built the first Detroit Lions Web site before the NFL had built a single site). We were sitting across the table from a prospective client when the client asked, as he had clearly been coached to do, “how many hits does your site get?” John’s response said it all. “I don’t know right this minute, but what I do know is one of those hits last week generated $40,000 in revenue.”
Mic drop.
Content creation and management should be viewed the same way.
Hundreds of Facebook likes or even thousands of Twitter followers will never compare to the creation of just a handful of Brand Champions.
Agency and marketing firms can shower you with numbers ranging from Web site statistics to Facebook fans. But can they demonstrate an ability to create personal social interaction and engagement that turns target audience into people who help propagate your brand?
Nothing sells better than Word of Mouth and creating Brand Champions gives you access to World of Mouth.
Talk in terms of the other person’s interest.
Whether you choose to work with a big agency or a small consulting firm to handle things internally this principal is mission critical. Broadcast marketing is dead. You need a person(s) or a company that is vested in your message and your story and knows how to create the content that will speak to and with your audience.
Not at them.
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