“People only buy from you for two reasons. They know you exist and they trust you. Awareness and trust. That’s all,” says Seth Godin, professional observer and groundbreaker who coined the phrase and innovation of “permission marketing” – where people ONLY receive emails from companies they have requested a communication stream from. (Yes, dear marketing maven and reader, prepositions at the end of a clause now have an official seal of approval and I type this to you as an editor.)
Awareness and trust were top of mind for me as I attended my first networking breakfasts after I moved from Winnipeg to Vancouver. My experience had teleported with me. My reputation and name recognition for my copywriter and strategist skills and ace performances as publicist of trade shows, press conferences and community causes did not arrive with its coveted credibility halo intact to this sales focused meet up.
Each person rose tableside, elevating themselves up from their seat and pitched their business. Then, before making way for the next member to do the same, they articulated their ask – that one piece of business and customer to be alert to on their behalf.
All in this model is based on the idea that we do business with people we come to know, to like and to trust. And we hope that each will refer business to the others in the community of colleagues in commerce.
A lot depends on that early morning rise out of the chair, doesn’t it? You need to be fully “woke” in your bid to impress the 10, 20 or 40 people on hand. You need to be ready with the words, energy, tone and body language that delivers that clear message.
You know as a listener at that table that the best messages are memorable and repeatable. All of us who partake in such opportunities at breakfast, lunch, dinner or after hours mixers, know we have to be up and on and in the game to fulfil even half of these ‘best practices’ of networking. We hope the recipients of our energy are ready and able as well.
Now, what if you could transfer all that energy, planning and personality to work for you through quality content 24/7?
Interested? Then this blog space is for you. Here we will explore, explain and expand the power of content. Corporate content to be specific.
What is Content? BusinessDictionary.com says: It is both information and communication: the sum total of the freshness, readability, relevancy, and usefulness of the information and the manner in which it is presented. It is the ‘glue’ that makes a website (or other material) ‘sticky’ and makes visitors return, and keeps them from leaving.
What makes it marketing content? Strategy. Consistency. Distribution.
This is what we’ll be digging into here,
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