If the headline had you checking the byline to see if this post was written by Nancy Reagan, you’re showing your age. (Others, check here.) We’re not talking about saying no to drugs. We’re talking about the shocking number of ways that just saying no can help your content marketing succeed. Here are a few of our favorites.
Just Say No to Your Market Being “Everyone”
It’s surprising how often we hear potential clients tell us their market is “everyone.” And it’s not just young start-up founders who have drunk a bit too much of their own Kool-Aid. If you’re pitching everyone, you’re pitching no-one. Even something as widely used as underwear is marketed at everyone. Victoria’s Secret certainly isn’t marketing to everyone. Neither is Hanes. And if you do believe your audience is that broad, at least be wise enough to segment that audience and market to the segments separately.
Just Say No to “Everything” Being What You Do
Fairly or not, our world values specialists over generalists. (Just compare the bill for your last visit with a specialist to your family doctor’s fees.) Even if you do offer a broad range of services, you’re better of marketing them in different ways. You can market them together if they’re complementary. If not, you might consider establishing separate brands or at least separate service lines.
Just Say No to Everything Being on Your Home Page
In larger firms, every division head wants his or her group featured as prominently as possible. In smaller firms, the fear of missing a potential customer by not being all things to all people drives a desire to include everything on the home page. Of course, emphasizing everything means nothing gets emphasized. Pick the services and audience segments you want to target most and feature them on your home page. Build flexibility into your CMS so you can change the featured Callouts and test which resonate most with the market.
Circling back to content marketing specifically, following these ideas means you’ll be producing content that is not broad in its appeal. Instead, it is deeply appealing to those you’ve identified as your key prospects. Focus on an area where you can carve out a niche of expertise and become the industry leader in that area. In other words, your content marketing focus should reflect your firm’s sharply focused expertise while illustrating and strengthening that expertise.
