Deciding Which Content Matters
It wasn’t too long ago that simply creating content was enough to set your business apart. Today, however, content creation has not only become commonplace, but a core element of nearly everyone’s marketing strategy.
That being said, it’s fair to argue that getting your content to stand out from the competition is becoming increasingly difficult, so I was interested to learn how one particular guest on The Content Experience Show seeks opportunities for what he calls “competition-free content.”
A short while back, Garrett Moon, CEO and Co-Founder at CoSchedule joined us as a guest on The Conex Show podcast to discuss finding a unique niche where your business can connect with your audience — and how to choose the right projects that fit within it.
During our 30-minute conversation, we talked a bit about his company, CoSchedule, and Garrett’s book, The 10x Marketing Formula, in which he discusses the marketing activities that will bring you 10x return versus 10 percent return, in order to figure out what to spend your time on.
“As marketers, we forget that our content is now in competition with everybody else’s content.” — Garrett Moon
At the top of the episode, we got into talking about what Garrett calls “content traps.” This is how he explained it:
If you have a piece of content that is generating good traffic — lots of social shares, comments, more traffic than you’ve ever seen — it’s really easy to see it as a success. The reality, according to Garrett, is that these metrics can be a false positive.
When you’re creating competition-free content, he explains, traffic isn’t hard to come by. Even in today’s competitive online landscape, you can still get traffic. But this makes it even more important to really think about what your content is saying — and this “content core” is a way to start framing the type of content you’re publishing, and refocusing it on what really provides business value.
“Businesses that succeed have to find their blue ocean. They have to find clean, clear, wide open expanse where they can grow.” — Garrett Moon
The “content core” Garrett mentioned follows a pattern outlined in his book. It puts two ideas in a simple diagram saying, “If you overlay two things, the first one is the topic, the top that your audience cares about.” These are simple frameworks that you can use as you’re creating content and as you’re doing your editorial planning.
Another thing Garrett mentioned is how his marketing team has started conducting interviews with their customers, asking them why they chose to work with CoSchedule, what problems they needed to solve, and how CoSchedule is helping them make a difference.
“Everything is kind of in those answers, because then you’re really starting to understand not the value that you believe that you provide as a business, but the value that your customers are receiving from your business,” Garrett said.
The last thing I’ll mention that we spoke about was how to decide which projects to focus on. “There’s a lot of like small things that can kill us,” he said, referring to new software, measurements, and tools that take up valuable time in the work day. “In the book, I talk about it, and that’s where the 10x concept comes from: 10x projects versus 10% time or 10% projects.”
There are more gems from Garrett in the episode, but I’ll leave them for you to discover. And if you’re someone who wants to maximize your team’s productivity and also find a unique niche to engage your audience, I’d definitely recommend you give it a listen.
Before I wrap up this post, I’ll ask: how do you prioritize projects based on your audience’s interests? Any thoughts on what your “blue ocean” niche is? Let me know in the comments.
