Your customers "want" the wrong things

Oct 29, 2020 9:48 pm

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Hello Content Creators!


How much of your marketing is designed to deliver what you think your customers want?


Maybe you think they want specs, feature lists, pricing, whatever.


This is logical.


Your customers probably think they want these things, too.


To be fair, we do need specs & features at some point in our customer journey, just usually further down the sales funnel. They’re how we confirm an emotional decision we’ve already made.


But first, we need to make that emotional connection!


Defy expectations to create emotions

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Remember the three types of content rule? Good content should Inform, Educate, or Entertain. We’re focusing on the Entertain portion today, which also includes:


  • Surprise
  • Delight
  • Inspire
  • Entertain


To get attention for your consumer products, some combination of these things is all you need.


Here’s a personal example:


Many people’s idea of a vacation is relaxing on a beach. Mine is Muay Thai, feeding street monkeys, racing enduro, and touring a factory.


Very few of my friends want this. Half the time my own wife and kids don’t even want to do it. But everyone enjoys seeing the photos and hearing the stories.


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Guess whose vacation we’re talking about the next time we gather?


It’s not the one where we sat lazily on a beach four days and overpaid for every meal. It’s our trip to Thailand, because we did some crazy shit.


Do something crazy.

Sometimes, it’s OK if your content doesn’t perfectly align with your customers’ expressed desires, as long as it entertains them or inspires them.


Or just makes them happy to be associated with you.


Because you can't build a brand on specs & features.


Look at Red Bull. Most of us aren’t doing any of the wild stunts they sponsor, but we like the idea of those stunts. We want to share that content and talk about it so that we’re cool and interesting by association.


What is your content doing to make people want to associate with you? To talk about you?


What are you putting out there that makes people want to connect with your brand and learn more about those specs and features?


A recent content project

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I wasn’t really sure how I was going to piece this one together.


We contracted with Knoxville, TN, to do a tourism story. The problem is, we had just done one the year prior, and it covered a lot.


I needed a different angle for this one because a) it’s pointless to regurgitate the same thing over again, and b) duplicate content can actually hurt overall SEO rankings because search engines aren’t sure which story to prioritize, so they end up splitting traffic between them rather than ranking one of them really highly.


I decided to focus on gravel cycling in the region, using Knoxville as a homebase. Searching around, there’s a dearth of good resources for riding gravel bikes in “Knoxville” and “Eastern Tennessee”.


So, you’ll notice that the subheadings, image alt text and phrasing throughout the story includes these keywords and phrases, which should help it do well in search over the long term. Check it out here.


This article is an example of long tail content. It won’t get a viral hit of traffic now, but it becomes a reference piece that’ll rack up traffic and domain authority for years. It’s one part of a complete content marketing strategy.


How could you make "reference content" for your industry, brand or category?


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Cool Stuff I've Found

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This week, it's random fitness & self care goodies:


Rogue Fitness Matador - I really can’t tell you how excited I am about the Rogue Fitness dip bar. Dips are a killer exercise, and Rogue makes killer equipment. Surprisingly, this beast was only a bit more expensive than the sketchy looking contraptions on Amazon, and it should last me a lifetime.


Schick Hydro 5 - These things last forever. Gillette may be better known for innovation (but they dull quickly), and Harry’s for disrupting the industry (not the closest shave). But Schick? They’re boring, yet cut close and I can use the same cartridge for 2+ months, even with Kristi & I both shaving our legs with it (because cycling, don’t judge).


Vybe Pro Massager - Percussion massage guns are hot right now, and there are a million generic options (and super expensive options) out there. I've been using the Vybe Pro for a few months now and really like it. It sits in the middle of the price spectrum, has a solid build, long-lasting battery, and a lot of different shape tips. Definitely good for pounding tight muscles into submission!


Time to get a little crazy,


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Tyler Benedict


PS - Thank you for reading all the way down. If you found something useful in this week’s newsletter, could you forward it to a friend? Thanks!


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*Any items, services, or products mentioned in these emails are provided solely because I think you'll like them. I don't sell this space, but some links might be affiliate links, which earns me a small commission (beer money, really) if you buy something. This helps support all the free content. Thanks!


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