How to Blog Successfully Without Writing Your Own Content

Today we are taking a look back at an interview we did with Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com. Brian built a very successful business around his content marketing strategy and we are going to apply some of his advice to answer these two questions:

1. Can content marketing work for your business?
   
2. Who should be doing the writing?

First of all, if you are new to the concept, content marketing is the process of creating interest in your product or brand by creating helpful and interesting educational media for your prospects. It can be videos, audio, pictures or writing. All of these work well when you are doing it right.

Can Content Marketing Work For MY Business?

…every business that sells something can use content marketing. I don’t care how boring you are. And I get this question a lot. People will use a B2B example and say, “Yeah figure that one out.”

B2B is where content marketing really thrives because selling that stuff is an education process. Any time education is involved, then content works. The balance between attraction content/lead generation content and your in person sales force is something I think that every business needs to work out for themselves and experiment with and test. ~Brian Clark

“Boring” vs. “Exciting” Industries

So if content marketing works for every industry what psychological principles are at play here? How can it be that it can work for “boring” industries as well as “exciting” industries?

The simple answer is what is boring to you may not be boring to the engineer. What is boring to the engineer may not be boring to the accountant. Everyone is looking for ways to enhance and improve their trade. Every audience find the knowledge that can help their industry interesting and exciting.

The Frequency of Being Helpful

There is one language that everybody understands. That one language is authenticity.

You can promise your prospects the moon and the stars but if you are don’t truly have their best interests at heart then you are going to find that it is very difficult for them to trust you. If your content marketing isn’t working then your content is probably not enhancing and improving the trade of your prospects and your goal is probably not to be as helpful as possible to your niche.

The success of your content is a natural consequence of producing content that is helpful. So yes, content marketing can and will work for your business if it is done on the right frequency.

Do I Have to Write My Own Content?

Now you understand why content marketing can work for your “boring” company. So the next question is, “What should I write?” and “Do I have to write it all myself?”

You obviously should not start randomly writing blog posts and putting them on your site with high hopes that the world is going to come knocking on your door. Here’s Brian’s advice:

First of all it is very doubtful that he should be writing anything himself. That is another misconception that came out of how content marketing evolved, people like me who are writers or wanted to write.

It really grew out of the early business blogging scene. And there was a lot of silliness going on that was perpetuated by the early bloggers that everybody has to blog and be a part of the conversation. I don’t think that is realistic given how businesses actually work.

Now treating your marketing in terms of a media first approach, which I have been exploring at New Rainmaker, that’s the way to go.

How to Treat Your Marketing in Terms of a Media First Approach

We just discussed the first piece of this puzzle. A successful media campaign focuses on being helpful before anything else. The second piece of the puzzle is to keep it entertaining and relevant. Approach it like a publishing company.

Video and infographics are great. A five minute video can be worth more than a 2000 word article. Start experimenting with these things. Broaden your horizon. Start your own podcast or vlog. Experiment with paid social media advertising to promote your content.

What If You Do Want to Create the Content Yourself?

If you would like to give content marketing a go and you also want to be the one creating the content we have two tips for you.

1. Be patient and approach it like a science experiment. Your writing skill has to grow naturally like any other muscle and you are going to have mixed results.
   
2. Keep educating yourself. There are many tools that will make this journey easier. Being a content agency we have a whole range of free tools that you can get to at http://groovedigitalmarketing.com/resources.

Finding the Right Agency

If your company is at a stage where you as the owner don’t have the time or bandwidth to start a content marketing effort we would encourage you to open a dialogue with us here at Groove. We might be able to help and if we’re not a right fit for your company we might be able to point you in the right direction.

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