6 Ways To Make Your Content Marketing Stand Out From The Crowd!
It’s all in the details. All these tiny small creative polishes make all the difference. Excellent marketers continuously seek these opportunities and act. I have said it many times before, the one most important asset you have as a marketer is your creativity. Period.
Your ability to find and improve ways to connect with people is what counts. These marketers win!
How good you are at setting up a drip campaign or how quick you can pull together a targeting campaign on Twitter is not. All these things are important skills to possess, but without your creative touch, you will only end up with doing what everyone else already has done.
Your ideas on how to stand out are what separates you from the mainstream
About a year ago, I got a follow-up mail from a sales guy at a company called Salesloft. It is by far the best one I ever got. I didn’t know him at all, but he made laugh out loud.
It’s funny but more than that. It’s also clever and dared. It works because it is spot-on the reality of my work. This guy at Salesloft could have done it the standard way, the easy way. He did not. Instead, he trusted his creativity to stand out from his competitors.
I think it’s a really good example on how to stand out in a personal and relevant way.
Creativity in today’s marketing is placed in the details of how you communicate and interact with your audience.
Just as this sales rep did when he caught my attention.
Below some of my absolute favorite marketers and why I think they are so superior in their work. They all stand out for certain reasons and they have certainly not chosen a standard approach to their work.
We do all have a lot to learn…
GIVE MORE THAN ANYONE EXCEPT — THEN GIVE MORE
Neil Patel’s track record is impressive, to say the least. He has founded companies like CrazyEgg, KISSmetrics, and Quick Sprout. He started his first blog 2006.
The foundation for his success is to share all his knowledge within digital marketing and doing it in very detailed posts. His writing is more or less like manuals on how to do exceptional good marketing.
Who could not like this extremely valuable content? He puts in all his knowledge in his posts and he’s consistent. One of the most focused content crafter that I know about. Often he links to spreadsheets and other high-value resources. Every post is generous and full of practical takeaways.
BE A PERSON — NOT A ROBOT
Being personal doesn’t mean being unprofessional. Still, a huge part of the content that is released every day (according to MarketingProfs 2 million blog posts daily), are bland and boring. No energy, no sign of engagement and nothing of its writer’s personality shines through.
Why on earth would you even consider publishing something that is impossible to feel something for? That’s what it all comes down to?
Creating a feeling of urge to take action, a feeling of faith or a feeling of trust. Inspiration or enlightening.
Even though you’re constrained by stiff corporate guidelines, you must show you are in this for real. As a person, as you. (that will make you feel good too…)
Brian Solis knows how this is done. Okey, he is one of the most influential persons within marketing, but he hasn’t always been. Even Brian started from scratch one day. He is well known as a key-note speaker and author, but what I appreciate the most with his work is how his commitment is always present.
His handwritten napkins notes show exactly that. What a content format and what an astonishing way to show his true commitment and engagement for his audience. So cool! Follow Brain on Facebook for more personal notes from his journeys.
KNOW WHO YOU ARE WRITING FOR
Once you know your audience needs and aspirations, you also hold the key to becoming an enabler of their journey ahead. Where your core competence is aligned to the drives of your audience, you have found your content sweet spot.
Sujan Patel is one of the most clever content marketers I know of. His background within SEO, content and growth marketing are extraordinary.
Besides his job at When I work, he has co-founded a marketing technology company called contentmarketer.io. A super smart tool to help with distribution of content, if you haven’t discovered it yet, I recommend you to do so.
Sujan knows his audience, he has been working with and market towards marketers for many years. That is a gift he takes full advantage of. The content pieces he puts out for contentmarketer.io is impressive. He has a special talent to address real pain points and in a subtle way introduce his software as a part of the solution.
Added to that, his language is direct and honest. Sign up for his blog, it’s a goldmine!
SHOW YOUR COMMITMENT
The very first time I laid my eyes on one of Noah Kagan’s superb blog posts, I was totally blown away. This guy is totally devoted to success with whatever he set his mind to. If you read his blog (you will from now on…) you will find that his goals are not only business oriented, he shares his life goals as well.
Noah knows that succeeding is only possible by failing and he’s not afraid sharing both sides of the story. When reading his posts, it feels almost like having a conversation with him. That makes me, even more, convinced about his true commitment.
Just as Neil Patel, Noah’s work is often how-to articles with an impressive depth and distinctive advice. Long-form content must be his innovation, his posts are long and every sentence is valuable stuff. You can almost smell the sweat of his hard work getting his post in place. There are few people on my radar who has such high standards to his content week after week.
FIND YOUR THING!
As described earlier, finding your content sweet spot is crucial. That happens when your core competence is connected to the needs of your audience. Next in line is to find your “thing”. I don’t mean a certain topic, what I want to point out is how you can deliver your ideas as attractive as possible.
Are you the provocative one? These people always have a twitch to it, but sure get a lot of attention.
Perhaps you’re more into putting things in perspective with a solid background read up?
Are you the teaching type always looking for explaining things as simple as possible?
Or maybe, you are out there to inspire people to change how they work or who they are? Like, Seth Godin.
Seth Godin knows it all. He is an icon and further introduction isn’t necessary. His absolute greatest gift is to package his thoughtfulness in a wide range of formats. My favorite one is his daily newsletters (sent from his blog shown above) that have become a daily highlight. And often, a welcoming surprise as you never know what’s coming.
FIND YOUR DIFFERENTIATION
Okey, you know your content sweet spot, you have started to explore the best way on how to deliver your ideas to the world. To really rise above the clutter, you need a to make some kind of statement. Something extraordinary that draws attention to it by itself
Many of you is familiar with Morgan Brown. He is one of the most recognized growth marketers in the world. Together with Sean Ellis (who gave birth to the term growth hacking), he is successfully running growthhackers.com and Qualaroo.
Morgan decided to write one high-quality growth oriented post per day for one year. Yes, one high-density post a day only published via an email. Nowhere else to be found. You can imagine the signup rate was pretty steep on that one. It is one heck of an achievement and it is also a way to differ from everyone else, impressive and super smart.
A totally different approach has Buffer used with huge success. Their transparency strategy is interesting in many perspectives. They have even dedicated a section of their blog only to this strategy. This makes them so much more interesting than any of their competitors.
Another cool thing is their remote policy, everyone working at Buffer are working remotely. These two factors make them stand out and makes their stories very intriguing. Of course, they do publish superior content too.
There is no given path for succeeding with content marketing, everyone have to test and adjust all the time. A creative process itself. One thing is certain, your ability to come up with fresh ideas will always play a central role in growing your business.
Use it to stand out!
HAAARTLAND is here to help. We sort out the key factors for your marketing resonance using big data & machine learning technologies. By doing that, we want to direct your creativity to create marketing that resonates with your audience. Grab your personal invite here!
Did I stand out with this post? Did I make you feel anything? Let me know, work in progress.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
