Effective Content Marketing is tricky

This is especially true if you are marketing on social media. So many voices, so much noise, how do I stand out? Many times, business owners spend money on ads and advertising spaces, but soon realize that although they have spent a lot of money and have seen, in some cases, some impressive results, as soon as they stop spending the money, they disappear into the abyss of noise and clutter that make up these digital marketplaces.

So what is the secret of creating content that gets a person’s attention?

Well, you need to remember two things: First, the foundational goal in any kind of marketing, especially in content marketing is to create content that helps build trust and confidence in you with your potential customers/clients.

KNOW, LIKE and TRUST are the three word mantra of any good marketing philosophy!

These words are not only individually powerful but they represent a flow of reality for your potential customers/clients. New customers are new because they did not KNOW you and now they do. New clients who know you will not TRUST you until they LIKE you. However, just because a potential customer/client KNOWS and LIKES you, doesn’t mean that they TRUST you to the point of giving you their business. So what you produce in content must be reliable and the information must have integrity. It also must show the innovative side of who you are.

Why use YOUR company, when other companies do the same thing that you do?

This is the essence of content marketing, that as a business owner, your potential customers or clients in a digital space are still human beings, they are just human beings that are exhibiting behaviors in digital spaces, but they are no less human. Human beings have certain things that are drivers for why they purchase a good or service and so the answer to the question is really stated in understanding what makes content interesting for the human beings that are interacting with your content.

 

 

On to the 4 U’s

With all that being said (and much more could be said about it, but perhaps another time), it is always good to remember the Four U’s that help to differentiate content that connects with people and content that does not. These four U’s are borrowed from the academic world and how research is crafted, but they are very useful in helping us create great marketing content.

The Four U’s of Effective Content Marketing:

  • Useful: How will this product or service benefit my customers in the current business climate?
  • Unique: How is the product or service I offer unique to the others that are in the marketplace? What is uniquely “you” about it?
  • Urgent: Why is this product or service important and why is it important to trust you? What happens if the customer does not use you? What are the ramifications? So what?
  • Ultra-Specific: What ultra-specific (and preferably foundational) area are you trying to market to your potential customers/clients? What makes it ultra-specific – Demographics, methodology, scientific merit, innovation to the industry, etc.?

These Four “U’s” help you write content that will position your company’s good and services in a light that makes an impact on the business reality of your potential clients and customers. It is more than selling a product or service, it is about selling YOU and what makes your business stand out from the rest of the marketplace.

 

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THE FOUR “U’S” of EFFECTIVE CONTENT MARKETING