Customer Research for Content Marketing
Customer Research for Content Marketing
The Growth Report #74
Hello friends,
On February 14, 2020 (how romantic) I published the first edition of this newsletter. And almost two years later most of you who were a part of it from the very beginning, are still around. Thanks! your continued readership means the world to me 🙏🏼.
Also, a quick shoutout to my buddy Joël over at RealGrowthHacking. They just launched a new course for all up-and-coming entrepreneurs out there:
A bulletproof process to launch your business
They teamed up with serial entrepreneur Boris Manhart to bring you this soup-to-nuts, actionable guide how to build a business from scratch.
But now, without further ado it’s time for…
...Today's topics
📈 Content:
Customer Research for Content Marketing
🧰 Tools of the Trade:
Articles, Tools and Inspiration for Marketers
⛑️ Reflections from the Trenches:
Your reputation is your most valuable asset
📈 Content
Customer Research for Content Marketing
As a marketer, how many times have you talked to a prospect or customer recently?
There is a secret, that most marketers have not heard about.
Before you ever create a piece of content: Talk to the people you are creating this content FOR.
Duh.
Sales, customer success and product talk to prospects or customers regularly. But very few marketers see the need to to engage with the outside world and understand the real needs that drive business decisions.
I can guarantee you it is an eye-opening experience and will change the way you think about content marketing forever.
When you talk to (potential) customers you hear about their daily challenges, successes and motivations. You learn how their daily life on the job looks like.
These conversations create empathy and empower you and your team to actually be relevant and helpful with the content you publish.
The more you do it, the more you will understand what it means to create content for an audience as opposed to content for the sake of it.
You gain an intuition for what your (potential) customers care about.
And at the end of the day you will be more confident hitting that publishing button, knowing that your work will make a difference in your users lives.
Quick and Dirty - 6 Steps to get started today
To start out, it doesn’t need to be complicated either.
You can always go fancier, once you have done 1-2 rounds of conversations:
Write ten of your best customers (or potential prospects on your content distribution list that fit your persona.)
Invite them for a 15 minute Zoom call.
Ask about their recent struggles and wins.
Ask them about what content they consume in what formats and which platforms.
Shut up and listen. Take notes (or record).
Repeat.
When you have created content relevant to the people you interviewed, send it to them. They will feel valued and heard.
Because you actually cared.
🧰 Tools of the Trade:
Articles, Tools and Inspiration for Marketers
💬 Be grateful for what you don’t get
"If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want." — Oscar Wilde
👨🎓 Marketing & Leadership Education
Principles of Effective Storytelling - A good primer on the hero’s-journey framework with lot’s of tips on how to actually get started on writing better stories.
Paid to Think - A fantastic book and toolbox for leaders to learn how to think and reason properly. This is a compendium of thinking methods compiled over 700 pages, not a book you read from start to finish, but a leader’s reference bible.
🤩 Brands and (digital) Products that caught my eye
Detail - Film multi-angle content with the help of this (slick) piece of software. It even works with your existing sources like webcams, your phone and laptop.
Rows - It’s Google sheet with super powers. Their automated reports feature is a god-send for marketers.
📚 Interesting reads
Listen to Your Own Advice - There’s a fascinating disconnect between the advice we give to others and the choices we make for ourselves. Research suggests we tend to be harder on ourselves and kinder toward others. Want to narrow the gap? When facing a difficult choice, imagine that you are advising a friend and then take your own advice. (Source: The Atlantic)
The Three Types of Perfectionists (and How to Channel Your Perfectionism for Good) - Lots of high achievers suffer from perfectionism, which prevents them from leading happier, more fulfilling lives. But solving for perfectionism isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. That’s because there are different types of perfectionists. This article will help you understand the difference, empowering you to manage your perfectionist tendencies more effectively. (Source: Lifehacker)
⛑️ Reflections From the Trenches
Your reputation is your most valuable asset
Your reputation is the most valuable asset in your “portfolio”. And your reputation is also the proxy for your future earnings.
Reputation is a simple construct, built on two ideas:
Ability: What you can do.
Reliability: What you actually do.
If you are not doing what you say you will (or could) be doing, your reputation will be the limiting factor of your life or career.
Use Proof of Work to earn your reputation
Reputation through differentiation is how we create an edge in any market, and it's even more true on the internet. In an environment of infinite noise and distraction, specificity wins.
Specific proof of work is the unlock: If you can show the outside world that you are not just talking but have proof of what you can deliver you are on the right track. This includes:
Online testimonials, reviews
Writers: blog posts, Designers: portfolio, Marketers: Analytics charts
Templates you use in your daily practice (only people who do the work can create templates that can be used in real life by others)
Artifacts of your client work (for service businesses): websites, social graphics etc.
Reputation built on proof of work is the closest thing to professional invincibility that exists.
Your proof of work builds equity over time
In a digital-first business, your "storefront" is decentralized across the platforms you use to build and communicate with your network. Every post and tweet, every email, every video, every podcast is an investment vehicle that generates equity after you take it to market.
If it never gets to market, no equity for you. Your equity in the market represents the collective value assigned to you by people consuming your message.
And ‘collective value assigned’ literally equates to your reputation. So treat your reputation for what it is: Your most valuable asset.
That's it for this week.
Talk soon,
Sandro