Make Your Content Pack a Punch
By: Sid Khaitan
Tags: Advertising, Marketing, Content Strategy, Copywriting, Personal Branding

Make Your Content Pack a Punch

Photo by Man Chung on Unsplash

We know Bruce Lee for his insane martial arts skills and inspirational quotes that instantly flood butterflies in our stomachs. But a recent discovery shows that he was also a marketing genius.

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.”

That’s deep. It’s also what content strategy and personal branding are all about. Planning the delivery of useful and usable content while adding your own spin to it.

During my first job out of college, I worked with an advertising legend. He was literally on set for campaigns like the Marlboro Cowboy and Gatorade’s “Like Mike”. One of his parting gifts to me was a framework I use to this day. It’s called R.O.I., and it stands for relevance, originality, and impact.

Find your audience when and where they’re ready.

Anyone named Eugene is probably worth listening to.

Eugene is so close to eugenics, you can’t help but wonder if designer babies were involved. Either way, we should all study a little bit of Eugene Schwartz. He wrote the book Breakthrough Advertising, in which he posited that there were 5 stages of awareness in any buying journey:

Unaware

Problem aware

Solution aware

Product aware

Most aware (or value aware)

Your followers aren’t ready to consume your content or products at any given time. They follow a process in their minds, from unaware to most aware.

“Dont push people to where you want to be; meet them where they are.” — Meghan K. Anderson

Creating content in a vacuum doesn’t keep you on course. Sure, it may increase website traffic (even though 90.63% of all pages on the Internet get none). But it won’t convert. Why? Anytime we draw outside of these lines, our message has the potential to come off as “bait-and-switch”, versus “surprise-and-delight”.

When you publish online, clappers and followers are expecting you to solve their problems — or satisfy their jobs to be done.

Let’s say your writing has them hooked.

The article you drafted on fishing in the Mediterranean Sea is so captivating! Jackie wants to make the trip. She knows she needs a guide. But when she shows up on your website to receive general wellness tips, she’s confused.

Even worse, she proverbially walks over to the next online shop and finds someone who sells her a guide to fishing in the Mediterranean Sea. You’ve taken her from unaware to problem and solution-aware, but someone else has fulfilled the rest of her journey.

I’ve been on the losing end of this equation plenty of times.

Once I grew my LinkedIn audience to 2,500 followers, I wondered why no one was signing up for my freelance services. Why was the phone not ringing off the shelf?

Well, none of my content was about freelance writing. It was mostly random mumbo jumbo. Productivity hacks. Random thought bubbles.

Don’t get me wrong, those topics were important in growing the audience and getting people to pay attention. Yet without a well-crafted offer, no one knew what I did. They were confused about what I sold.

Ensure relevance by meeting them halfway.

The sweet spot lies between your goals and your audience’s needs.

But meeting someone where they want to be met is easier said than done.

The person on the other side of the fence doesn’t know they have a problem. If you’re a freelance writer and your customer is an executive at a B2B SaaS company, they might believe that content doesn’t sell.

They might feel like “marketing is easy”, and they’re better off producing content themselves.

At this stage, the buyer is unaware of our product or service. It’s our job to convince them that marketing without strong copywriting will drop the ball. Without it, they will fail. They won’t be able to acquire or retain customers, which will ultimately result in lost revenue.

Content strategy framework based on the 5 Stages of Awareness. Made by author.

But others might be conscious of the benefits that come with hiring a freelance writer. They fall into category #3 above, they’re solution aware. They just don’t know why they should believe in you.

“Your brand is a gateway to your true work. You know you are here to do something — to create something or help others in some way. The question is, how can you set up your life and work so that you can do it? The answer lies in your brand. When you create a compelling brand you attract people who want the promise of your brand — which you deliver. “ — Dave Buck

The role your content plays here is different. It should convince Jackie that you’re the best person for the job. It should nudge her to forget about other fishing guides and put her trust in you.

Instead of “you need copywriting”, the new message to send is “you need me”.

When I rebuilt my profile and started putting myself out there, the right audience started to take notice. I received DM’s asking if I could look at a startup’s product positioning, or write a blog article. Before long, my client portfolio had grown to $5K per month.

Originality starts with personality and transparency.

Christopher Lochhead makes being original look easy.

As the “godfather of category design”, he dares others to be different. As a co-founder of Category Pirates (along with Eddie Yoon and Nicholas Cole), he explains how brands like Salesforce, Apple, and Uber created categories. By solving problems for customers and convincing them that the world had changed in their favor.

“Don’t find customers for your products. Find products for your customers.” — Seth Godin

He also gives advice on how to write a top business newsletter, with learnings that apply nicely to building a brand or creating content on Medium as well.

LinkedIn post by Christopher Lochhead

The odd numbers tell us to write about what we value, what isn’t being talked about, and favor core beliefs over metrics and comparisons.

The even numbers tell us to dig deep into research, be consistent, and make our thoughts concise for readers.

Impact is about making a difference, not a point.

Bruce Lee said it best.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Ideas, legacy, and impact extend much farther than a person’s lifespan. They find a nest in other people’s thoughts and behaviors.

As writers, we rarely want to change someone else’s mind for the sake of it. There’s a destination, or perspective, we want to share. Inspiring a new way of thinking, teaching a lesson, or entertaining others during a rough time.

I have a mentor that meets with me once a week to help advise on the sci-fi book I’m writing. Instead of offering a proverb or lesson, he tells me stories. They seem random and open-ended at first, but I always leave with a clear takeaway. The most interesting part is, he doesn’t tell me what his take is.

It’s powerful because the stories cause me to think on my own and formulate an opinion. They generate impact by bouncing around in my brain, searching for an answer or application.

Instead of persuasion, tap into personalization to make a difference.