To truly dive into the world of content marketing, you must first understand that writing something great is only a drop in the bucket that is the strategy behind successful content marketing. Writing something with a few keywords jammed in it is far off from content marketing institute’s definition of:

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Finding someone to create some compelling copy for your company is reasonably easy and inexpensive, thus, this isn’t really part of the “strategy” but more of a constant that is required. That isn’t to say that some content isn’t better than others, however.

With over 2 million blog posts published every single day, truly great content is more and more rare.
But don’t take my word for it, check out today’s most iconic content marketers that have perfected the art of modern content publishing and marketing that set the standard.

These three marketers have harnessed the power of content marketing from the ground up- slowly building a brand by consistently producing content of the highest quality and eventually monetizing the flow of loyal readers.

And it’s because they make people’s lives better.

Hop on any one of their website and you know instantly what they’re about. They aren’t about filling a page up with fluff and keywords; they desire to pass on knowledge that is actionable in making you a better you, from life advice to how to write more effectively.

Of course, they do a lot more than just write. Although copy-writing for these prolific internet marketers will remain a core piece of their content strategy, they have honed other content creating abilities to grow multiple brands.

What can they teach us?

A. Don’t hold back

This means don’t keep any secrets from your viewers, show them exactly who you are, and expose the most valuable information to them that you possibly can.

Just hop on Ramit Sethi’s site and you can see that he is fully exposing the countless hours of work he has put into discovering valuable information for free. And this is exactly what you want viewers to think:

“I can’t believe I’m able to be here experiencing this online… for free!”

Yep. It has to be that good.

Eliciting this mental response in a viewer creates a brand connection, which lets the viewer know that you really do care about them, and this generates the trust required to build a loyal, returning fan.

And with more and more sites popping up like Harvard Business Review requiring a paid subscription to read a certain amount of articles, creating this trust is more valuable than ever. Juxtaposed against someone like Brian Clark offering free webinars, free lessons in podcast form, and free question answering, you can bet he’s doing it right.

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B. Create a brand personality that empathizes with your audience

There is no “one best way” do accomplish this, so we’ll go over a few options.

Powerful biographies
Identifiable tone and style of communication
Engaging storytelling through different mediums
Quickly recognizable type and goal for each content piece

Constantly understanding who your audience is and what they’re going through while forming these four building blocks is what creates a strong brand voice.

Gary Vaynerchuk tells us the story of his rise from nothing in a vivid and un-paralleled way directed at an audience looking for inspiration, which doubles as the voice for his company, Vayner Media.

Ramit Sethi seeks to tear back the veil covering the wealth of secrets he’s discovered over many years and expose them to the common man working at an average desk, but the best thing is that Ramit takes on the role of that common man in his content pieces.

Brian Clark works to take the “path not traveled” in his marketing strategy to show that his rise from a solo blogger to a CEO can help young and traditional marketers alike understand how the content marketing world should be done.

So, is accomplishing A and B a lot of work? Yes. Can it be done over a matter of weeks or even months? No.

But is it possible? Yes.

The road to meeting the standard set for us by these three prolific content marketers is a long one, and it begins with a clear, actionable strategy. Who exactly does your company want to reach with your content? What tools do you have or know of that can help guide you? Are you prepared to develop a company-wide tone and style for your brand?

These are only a few of the tough questions businesses or individuals must ask themselves when considering a full-body dive into content marketing. To continue, follow the most respected online voice of content marketing, Neil Patel, and read his post about how to begin content marketing here.

And remember, there is no such thing as an “overnight success”.

Image credit: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2015/oct/13/greatest-time-ever-build-business-says-gary-v/330175/

Tags:- actionable strategy Brian Clark Content Marketing content marketing institute