Content Marketing: The two most important success factors

According to Joe Pulizzi, there are only two success factors in Content Marketing:

1. Content marketing is not about you
2. One must continuously deliver

Joel Spolsky – Founder of Trello and several other successful businesses – had a very popular blog called Joel on Software. His blog helped him start and develop his business, and in one article, he mentioned one of the key keys to success – and you should read the comment twice!

“For it to work properly, a blog must be about something bigger than the company or product. It sounds simple, but it’s not. It requires proper discipline not to talk about yourself and your business. Blogging as a medium seems very personal, and most often, it is. But when you use a blog to promote a business, the blog should not be about you. It must be about your readers, who will/may become your customers. It must be about making your readers feel good.”

According to Joe Pulizzi, most content marketing programs fail because they do not follow Joel’s advice. Many brands believe content marketing is just about the smart use of text, video and other channels to attract potential customers.

It must be something more than that. It must be about solving your customers’ problems. It must be about teaching them to be excellent at something. When you communicate with potential customers, you change the way they think forever by giving them an increased understanding and knowledge of something. They will remember you as a person/company, ensuring they return.

[Tweet “A blog must be about solving customer problems – what keeps them awake at night.”]

Success Factor # 1: For your content marketing to succeed, it can’t be about you!

How much is your marketing and communication about you and your products/services?

Over to the other success factor. Seth Godin – Marketing Guru and Author of 18 Best Sellers – highlights in the book Linchpin that delivery is the biggest difference between successful and failed entrepreneurs. So they deliver. Successful businesses deliver their products and services consistently. They are not waiting for it to be 100% perfect, but they get it out. They take the risk all the time.

Quality content (success factor #1; it’s about your customers) and continuity (delivery). That’s exactly what continuity is – that is, delivery. The delivery is your promise to your customers. Getting the contents into your customer’s hands all the time is much more important than the content being perfect. Content marketing is not perfect.

We would have come closer to perfection if we had waited a few more days. But that’s not the goal. Our goal is to continually influence our customers so that their behaviour can be changed or maintained in some way. If we stop delivering, it is not possible.

Success Factor # 2: No matter what channels you have chosen for your content marketing, you need to continuously deliver

Takeaway: For content marketing to be successful, we need to continuously deliver content that makes our potential customers better in something (e.g., skill/system/process).

Do you have any thoughts about this? I want to hear from you – let’s discuss it in the comments.

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