With everything happening right now, what's your approach to content marketing? (Sharing mine below)

Question

Hey guys, with everything that’s been going on, it’s safe to assume your customers’ attention is much harder to hold right now.

They’re more focused on how to save their lives and business despite the current crisis around the world.

So if you’re looking to get their attention or convert them into leads, you have to do a better job at creating content that’s relevant to them right now.

Anyhoo, I wanted to share what I’m doing to attract and hold their attention in this season:

1. Talking about new and relevant findings (that help them right now)
2. Crafting the top 20% of my content more carefully
3. Cutting out unimportant points from my content
4. Delivering the value readers came to my content for
5. Going heavy on visuals

Avoiding distributing content through channels my prospects don’t frequent

If this doesn’t get classified as a plug, I’ve got a full guide where I explain each of this points better; if you want it, say “yes” and I’ll send it to you. (No signup required)

Ryan Wilson · Accepted Answer

I think this is great! Thanks for sharing.

I would make the argument that we should be doing most of these things all the time. We should always talk about findings that can help right now but just have situational awareness. What helps someone right now is probably different than what it was 6 months ago. Always cut out unimportant content. Always try to align the value with what they expect to get upon arriving at the content (This is great for SEO).

What are you doing to craft the top 20% of your content more carefully? How do you define what the top 20% of your content is?

Amardeep Somal · Answer

Hi Victor! This is a great discussion point. Your focus on delivering value and talking about the most recent findings that can help them is absolutely the right thing to do.

In running an online publication, right now I think my content priority is in providing value where I can, amplifying voices affected by recent events, and giving more important messaging a space to be seen. If that means it affects my metrics or that I'm publishing less frequently, so be it. I've seen so many brands in the past few days that have just used recent events as a chance to plug themselves or make themselves more visible. Consumers right now don't want to see you - they want to see what you're doing.

I think that there's another dimension to this too, in that the industry you're working in and your own accountability has an affect on how your content will be received. For example, if I see a brand that has never otherwise cared about marginalized people suddenly posting about them now - it seems false-hearted. Fact is, some brands actually need to just listen right now instead of firing content out.

With everything happening right now, what's your approach to content marketing? (Sharing mine below)

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