The most important underpinning of effective content marketing is creating and openly sharing content that satisfies the selfish needs of your audience and prospects.
And then doing it over and over again.
In other words, give people a “reason why”. Why should they come to your website? What value does your content provide? What problem does your content solve?
Satisfying this desire is the foundation for attracting attention and building trust online.
Here’s an example:
Say you’re looking to hire a real estate agent and you get a couple agents recommended to you by your friends.
Agent 1′s website has a nice glamor shot, some pictures of recently sold listings and some claims about being the best agent in the area. Basically an online brochure.
Then you go to Agent 2′s site. She also claims to be the best but offers a regular blog with video tours of her latest listings, downloadable neighborhood guides and tips for staging your home for an open house.
Whose website do you think you’d spend more time on? Which agent do you feel you’d know better and trust more? And whose site would come up in Google for someone searching “home staging tips”?
But most importantly, who do you think you’d hire?
Creating content that stubbornly focuses on the needs of your audience and solves a problem attracts attention. And the best kind of content to achieve this is the kind that teaches.