As the practice of content marketing goes mainstream, it is inevitable that it will be used in ways that undermine the very thing that makes it work – teaching.
Want to make your content marketing better?
Then consider your platform to be like a traditional classroom, and you the teacher. This will help to ensure your content marketing delivers value worthy of the attention of your audience.
Begin thinking of yourself as a teacher instead of a marketer. That mindset will change your content marketing for the better.
Create the Desire for More
Those of us that speak to audiences know the sale of products after a presentation is one of the easiest we’ll make. Why? We’ve made an emotional connection that uplifts our audience, such that they desire more, even if there is a price.
Does your content marketing create desire? This is one of the roles of the teacher or presenter – to have the audience so hungry for more it fills the classroom the next day, or gets the speaker hired again. Thus, creating the hunger for more is a primary role of your content marketing.
In our digital environment the practice of using content to go fishing for leads is ever so common. The reason for this is it’s no big deal when it doesn’t work because the time and effort to create it was minimal.
Teachers and speakers cannot do this or we will respectively, eventually either get fired or seldom hired.
Deliver or It’s Over
How good would your content marketing be if it absolutely had to deliver? When you make the decision that you will deliver, everything changes. Suddenly practices such as editorial planning, keyword research, editing, and rewriting become standard.
That is a world where some of us live already, and one that will soon be greeting all content marketers.
Teachers have enormous responsibilities, including continuously earning the attention and trust of their students. Imagine the conditions in a school classroom where the teacher has lost the attention of the students? It’s over.
There are few second chances when it comes to attention and trust. This is why most people are afraid to get up in front of an audience – they know they have to deliver or its over. Make that your content marketing mantra.
Ideas for Teaching Your Community
Sharing, helping, and inspiring are just a few teaching strategies that will elevate your content marketing. It’s a simple matter of thinking of your community first.
Teaching helps to better assimilate your experience and capture its value, for yourself and others. So, start by bringing your experiences to your audience. That alone can be enough if your experience is extensive.
When I operated my local landscape business it was exciting when we made our occasional breakthroughs. Now I try to share as many of them as I can recall with my small business audiences. You should consider doing the same.
Most of us learn best from the examples of those that preceded us. This is the basis of coaching, which is another form of teaching that results in delivering new skills and fewer mistakes. So, share your stories.
When a student receives a grade of an “A” on a project it means both the student and teacher did their job well.
What grade would you give yourself as a content marketing teacher?
About the Author: Jeff Korhan, MBA, helps mainstream small businesses create exceptional customer experiences that accelerate business growth. Get more from Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.
Jeff is also the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business – (Wiley 2013)
