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Last week I came across a post by the communication giant that is Chris Brogan.
But I don’t want you to go and read that just yet, instead, here’s what I took away from the http://vhealthportal.com post and here’s how you can use it in your content marketing to get the attention you deserve from your customers and your community:
To me, competition is to remember to stay focused on my community and my buyers (not always the same people, by the way). My competition is with doing the research that doesn’t get attention or praise, and then making that research into something that is worth time and sometimes money to my audience.
“The research that doesn’t get attention or praise.”
Un-sexy no?
Of course, but so is training for a marathon, eating vegetables when you want a 5 course Chinese banquet every night (I could put that away… test me, I dare you), or spending hours writing, tweaking and polishing your sales page.
And afterwards, you get your hot moments. Your little tastes of fame:
Finishing the marathon, having more energy and looking veg-diet gorgeous or selling enough eBooks in one day to pay your rent for the month.
Now lean in and listen carefully…
…when it comes to the kind of content that pulls people in, builds trust and has people salivating over your offers (not recommended for food stall owners), this advice is invaluable.
And it’s a heck of a lot easier than marathon training or swapping chow mein for carrots.
A few hours of un-sexy content research can create. . .
A lifetime of hot moments for your business.
Let me give you an example.
The Copywriting Phrasebook took me about a month here and there to search for the kinds of words and phrases (all 501 of them) that could help people write more compelling copy.
It wasn’t like writing the sales page eBook, it didn’t have the flow and the momentum of telling a story. It was simply a case of chipping away bit by bit and adding and categorising a new word or phrase here and there.
Simple and Un-sexy.
But I knew it would be a super shortcut for my readers to have, and was something they couldn’t get from any other book on copywriting. It’s simple, very popular and still sells regularly almost a year after I released it.
So how can you do the same?
Creating Your Simple Fame Content
This style of content has to come from something you know your customers need or want and a great way to start figuring this out is to look at common problems or questions that crop up from your community.
Parenting coach? Could you collect a list of parenting book titles and categorise them into one list based on age of child or situation for example?
Social Media Marketing Expert? Could you create a list of 100 Twitter template tweets that people can use as inspiration for getting started?
Nutritional Therapist? Could you put together a meal plan to cover every day for a month, including the shopping lists of everything you’ll need for the week?
This kind of content might seem simple, but putting in the time to research what’s out there, pulling in the facts and figures and making it easily presentable is the kind of content that is attractive to people who need a solution and are in a hurry.
And if you base it on questions you see all the time in your niche, you’re creating something that can continue to sell or be downloaded in order to meet that need.
Have a think, see what you come up with and let me know what you would choose for your simple fame content in the comments below.
What a great article! I love the idea of focusing on really useful and great information for your audience rather than something flashy and ‘sexy.’ Useful information is what keeps people coming back even though it might not be the most exciting. Thanks also for the great tips on creating your simple fame content and really understanding what your niche is. Thanks!
Hey Jane!
Lovely to meet you here 🙂
Totally agree, flashy and sexy might get people through the door once, but if there’s no substance in what you’re offering, people will figure it out pretty quickly.
Great insight, Amy. I was up early reading (research in disguise) this a.m. Alongside your post (that I filed in Evernote yesterday to read later – research tip) I discovered this quote from Tony Robbins – “The single most important and potent way to expand your income is to devise a way to consistently add real value to people’s lives.” Your post brought this quote to life for me in some practical ways. “Fame” follows the value we add. Thanks.
Hi Eddie! Great to have you here – welcome!
Love the Tony Ribbins quote, another of my faves is Zig Ziglar’s you can get anything you want by helping enough people to get what they want. (Paraphrasing)
See you’re a member of AWAI – Love their stuff! 😉
Thanks for your reply. Yes, Zig Ziglar is a fave as well. Seth Godin gave him an awesome tribute via his blog recently (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/celebrating-zig-ziglar.html). Good stuff.
AWAI member indeed. They are incredible.
GREAT POST Amy! I love this book “The Wizard of Ads” too. When I first started selling radio a very very smart sales manager recommended I get and read. It is now like my “bible” of advertising 🙂
Thanks Jessica! It is in my Amazon basket as I type. I’d not heard of that one before and as soon as my book ban is lifted (I have waaaay to many on my shelves to work through!) I’ll be buying it! 🙂
Hello Amy! It’s funny that you’ve just published this article, as only last night I was thinking along these very lines…i.e. how can I bring everything together for my audience? (I was thinking of a specific niche at the time.)
Articles such as this are always eminently readable too – with titles such as “10 steps to X” or “100 ways to improve your Y”, who can resist?
Hey Tom!
I’ve just finished teaching a webinar tonight which was a step by step look at how to highlight an audience problem, pull out their specific pains and then narrow it down even more to choosing a way to deal with the topic. In it we looked at those popular title posts such as the “How To…” / the “Achieve X Without Y” and The “10 ways to….” etc. Really helps you narrow the focus into something that doesn’t feel overwhelming to create but gets results for your audience.
I had an interesting experience with this recently of reworking a list I was sent of 100 African must read books. I posted it because it seemed like a nice contrast to the BBC list that’s always doing the rounds on FB, and it’s relevant to my business as I write fiction novels set in southern Africa. Turns out lots of other people agreed. It generated a huge swell in traffic and retweets.
It took a while to put together, but was well worth the effort.
That’s fantastic Fiona, I can imagine that took some time (I’m assuming you’d read the books before and didn’t have to do a monster cramming session 😉 ). Even so, a lot of hard work that really paid off. Thanks for sharing that!
No, I confess to only having read a small number. I went through the list and linked all to the Amazon pages which took a long time! I wanted to show that the books are readily available and easily accessible from anywhere in the world.
What’s been fun is seeing all the book lovers who have come out of the woodwork and added in their own ideas.
I think that’s one of the other advantages of a list like you recommend; people can easily connect with it and see where their own ideas/experiences fit.
I can imagine that would take a fair bit of work compiling that.
That’s a great point about people wanting to contribute their own ideas, I’ve never thought about it before but you do see a lot of interaction on posts like that. I suppose it gives people a very specific idea to focus on which might make it easier for them to comment and join in.