Why share your content with others?

The simple fact is people no longer pay attention to much traditional advertising. There is so much of it about that we have learned to ignore it. Traditional advertising on its own may no longer provide a good return on investment.

What works is building trust with your audience; Building relationships with your customers and potential customers. People want to deal with people – even if this is online.

This is where regularly sharing high quality content works well. Content marketing should be aiming to build relationships not to directly sell your product (at least not all the time). Think of it as educating others so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. It is selling without selling.

Use it for building brand trust and awareness and to become a recognised expert in your field. This is done by sharing your expertise with others for free.

What should I share?

Ask yourself “What would be of value to my customers?”, “What kind of questions do they ask?”, “What information can I provide that is useful to them?”

The idea is to make your content useful, attractive (use graphics) and quality is key.

Where should I share it?

You want to make your content as widely shared as possible but use the right channels for your audience and concentrate on using a few channels well rather than everything not so well.

Can I just distribute it?

Unfortunately not! You want to use your high quality, informative content to start the relationship with your audience.  Get their interest and then engage with them to find out more about their needs and to let them build trust in you.

The downside of content marketing is that it does take some time. It should be carried out by somebody who not only has the time to create high quality content and to share that content but also somebody who understands how your business works. Many businesses find that they end up outsourcing their content marketing and this can be a very cost effective decision provided that you select the right partner. I published an article on LinkedIn recently about this and I would urge you to read this before you make any decisions.

Concise Training provides an open and honest content marketing service.  You can find out more about the options we offer here.