In the movie, Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella plows up his cornfield to build a
baseball diamond in the hope that some long-lost legends of the game will come
to play.
The movie is a perfect parallel to content marketing. Stick with me and you’ll see why.
Content marketing is about developing and distributing relevant
and valuable information to attract and engage a clearly
defined and understood target market. The intended result is to create a win-win situation.
Unfortunately,
a lot of time and expense gets invested in producing content that has limited
redeeming value for its intended audience. Here's why: Ineffective content is focused on you rather than your readers.
Features versus
Benefits
Most business leaders are convinced that if they fully
describe the unique features of what they offer, surely the right target
markets will be motivated to buy, join or give. As a content strategist, I struggle with this.
While the details and corresponding advantages of your product
or services are important, spotlighting this content puts the focus on you. Content that attracts and motivates
your target markets is about them.
Most marketing writers have memorized the simple, yet brilliant
statement by Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt: “People don’t want to
buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
People gravitate to content that demonstrates you understand them, and
that what you offer speaks to an experience that’s bigger than your
product.
There’s a TV commercial for a popular pain relief medication.
Less than 10 seconds of the ad is devoted to the product’s features. The remainder
captures the story of a grandmother’s pain-free ability to play hide and seek
with her grandson.
Similarly, marketing for the recent roll-out of the iPhone 5c
has nothing to do with features. It’s all about the benefiting experience of
having a phone in a color that defines who you are. A long while back, Volvo talked about the
features of its well-built car. A steady stream of third party reviews of crash
tests led to a major marketing shift. When you purchase a Volvo you aren’t
getting features, you’re purchasing safety for your family.
So What?
Try this exercise: divide a piece of paper into two columns—one
labeled “Features” the other labeled “So
what?”. On one side, list the features of your business or product. For each
feature, respond to the correlating column labeled “So what?” Keep digging until you hit the Holy Grail response to the question.
Your older adult community offers Alzheimer's day care services. So what? Adults with Alzheimer's receive quality care during daytime hours. So what? These adults will be engaged in a safe, secure environment. So what? This relieves a huge burden for their adult children. Bingo.
This questioning isn’t meant to be flippant. It’s intended to keep you focused on the endgame—the resulting experience for your target audience(s). While the features and their advantages--Alzheimer's
services in a safe, secure environment are important; it's the impact on the key decision maker (typically the adult children) that sets the tone for relevant content marketing.
Let’s return to the movie. A baseball diamond in a corn
field is surely unique, but so what? While the field features a ball field, the
benefit is a man who gets to live his dream. And that’s what makes the title-- Field of Dreams--a brilliant example of
content that hits its mark.
