Content marketing will not make you great, but it can show people what’s great about you. The trick is knowing what you have to offer that’s of benefit to your audience. Everything has to filter through that. To be very blunt, most people care more about their own story than they do about yours. Their interest is in their lives, their family, their pets, their business. It doesn’t mean you can’t tell your story. It means that you must turn your audience into the focus of your story. Now they’re interested!
“Content marketing is really like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date.”
David Beebe, former head of content, Marriott
Use that principle as a lens, and you’ll start to see what you can offer your audience. Now you have valuable content, and it’s time to put it out there. Do so consistently. Relationships are built over time, and your influence will grow stronger the more you invest in building relationships with your audience.
There are people you’ll never meet that will feel like they know you, because you’ve built a level of trust with them that pushing your product could never do. And we like to buy from people we know. We like to hear from people we know. These are the people with real influence over our lives.
