Jeff here with PublishorPerish.FM, the program for marketing-minded sales leaders and sales-minded marketing leaders.
Do you want to know who’s crushing it today? Jenna. Jenna is crushing it. Why? She has made an appointment with her audience and she is building an awesome relationship with them.
How did she do that?
On a weekly basis she compiles a series of articles, news, information, events, etc. from across a somewhat dry, technical topic. She just compiles it, puts it into a blog post and sends it off via email. And this curation that she’s done, which is capturing all of this information, and simplifying it and organizing it into the most important elements, is sent out to her clients on a weekly basis. Jenna does this like clockwork, so that, if she doesn’t send it, her audience misses it if she doesn’t post her regular article.
When Jenna goes on vacation she actually received emails asking “Where’s the weekly update? What’s going on?”
So that’s a great sign that she’s taking that role, that position of an active curator, an active teacher in this space. Her weekly update has become so popular that she is going to activate it to a broader audience. She wants to share this information, this knowledge, to a broader audience through social activation.
So now Jenna will be entering into a much more noisy and crowded market – so how will she stand out?
Here are suggestions for standing out in a noisy, crowded marketplace when you are really depending on social activation.
1. Build from your base audience.
2. Ensure you have GREAT content.
3. Have great headlines. We need great headlines that stand out that will compel people to click through and read the article.
We covered the 4 “U’s” of Headlines back in Segment 13; today we are going to focus the discussion on what headline to give a curated newsletter. Do you just call it the “Update” or the “RoundUp?” Those headlines are a little flat. Your core audience might know what to expect but your broader audience may not.
How do you get attention? How do you get people interested? How do you get people looking into your posts a little deeper?
Here’s how:
Extract the key nugget of information from your whole series of content you pulled together, and call that out. Call attention to that key specific element. Generate interest and encourage people to engage with that content; they will find that key element within the curated email.
So what if that key element you pull out alienates someone else? That is GOOD! If you try to appeal to everyone you actually appeal to no one. The whole idea is to engage, pick your persona and drill into that persona. Use that as your base. Try to appeal and trigger an emotional response from those key set of individuals. Effectively, you were to play it safe with everyone you’re just going to end up “shouting into the wind.”
Bottomline, this is a critical opportunity we have to expand upon great content that’s flowing. Make sure your content is highly consistent, which is key. Now you’re in the activation game which is really just about promotion. By understanding how to make your content stand out you will break away from the rest.
Look for Jenna’s content – it’s really awesome!
And, as always, think like a marketer and sell like an animal.
Cheers!