We’ve all had that piece of content. That one we meticulously craft, painstakingly edit, and perfectly polish only to have it go… nowhere.

If you’ve been creating content for awhile that feeling is all too familiar. The feeling of missing the target with your audience and falling to deliver a piece of content that they value. For some, this is their default result. So what is causing this disconnect?

All too often, content is answering the wrong question.

Content marketers are great at answering the question “What should I do?” Dishing out advice for this question comes easily and makes for some great content. However, it’s the wrong question to be answering.

Imagine this: Your taking a trip to France soon and you need some advice. You seek out a well known expert. You ask this expert “How can I communicate better with locals while I’m abroad?” The expert replies “Speak French.” Uhhhh… what a dick!

Your expert has answered the “What should I do?” question, but failed to explain HOW you do it. While this may seem ridiculous, this is what most content marketers do to their audience everyday.

Just search Google for advice on how to be a thought leader. You’ll find countless articles telling you to build your network, publish great content, and reach out to other influencers. That’s a whole lot of “Whats” without any “Hows.”

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably starting to realize how often you are actually falling into this trap, but there is a way to fix it.

Learn to See Layers

When you are creating content, it can often seem like you are solving your audience’s problems, but their may be a deeper layer of detail you need to be hitting in order to be truly useful.

A simple exercise to assess if you are really at the deepest layer of detail is the “How Test.” Just like a young child, ask “But how?” of every piece of advice you give. If the answer to that question is not painfully obvious or simple common sense, there is another layer of advice you should be including.

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

While much easier said than done, you should try to approach a piece of content with a blank slate. Try to forget everything you already know. Get rid of any industry know-how and technical knowledge and try to approach a piece from the perspective of your audience.

If you knew nothing about the topic at hand and read the piece of content you are creating, would you be able to put that advice into action? Could you accomplish the task or overcome the difficulty covered in the content? Be honest with yourself and don’t be afraid to go back and add detail.

Listen for Feedback

While a piece of content that misses the mark can be a terrible feeling (all that work for nothing!) producing a piece of content that resonates more than makes up for it. When a piece of content hits the target with your audience you will know it immediately in the way with which they share and engage with it.

Your audience is already giving you feedback on the quality of your content. You just need to look and listen for it.

What do you think about answering “How” instead of “What?” Which question is your content answering?