by Tony Vidler       

IF you have bought into the key concept of providing good quality content, or information, to prospects in order to engage them until they are ready to use your services, the inevitable question becomes:

“what do I provide in the way of content?”

It seems a fair question too. Very few professional advisers also happen to be creative graphic designers, or prolific writers and producers of material in the marketing sense.  It isn’t a core technical skill for our profession.  It IS however a commercial skill that our business must have, one way or another.

Here is the first challenging thought however:

You already have the skill.

You just haven’t realised it, or given yourself sufficient credit for it.  Most professionals are in the content delivery business on a daily basis, but we do it on a one-to-one basis.  We design and collate content all the time in the form of research, and analysis, and forming objective opinion regarding strategies and tactics that customers can use, and we the (as a matter of course) take all of that and put into a digestible form for the customer called a “financial plan”, or “statement of advice”, or “report”.  So any competent professional is already designing and creating content daily for their clients.

You are closer to being a genuine Authority than you realised.

Onto the second challenging thought:

Why are we putting all the effort into creating content for an audience of “one at a time”? And then replicating the effort for the next individual customer?

Here is the Blinding Flash Of The Obvious: the professional’s content marketing problem usually is a simple one: we need to figure how to leverage the knowledge which is our stock in trade, and becomes our content to share.

Actual methods of packaging up the know how that we are willing to share for mass distribution – which is what leveraging content is really – are numerous.  The obvious contenders that spring to mind are newsletters and ezines, blogs, whitepapers, press releases, seminars and information booklets, along with video and podcasts.

They are all methods of delivering content to the market on a mass scale.  The delivery mechanism would typically be website, email, radio or television show, or books.

Our marketing then focusses upon two key things: packaging the content so it looks snazzy and appealing and creates interest, and consistently lettering the world know that it is there for the taking. In this respect, social media supported by great branded email and good use of a CRM system will be the winning combination.

This last paragraph is a rather simplified action plan of course (but hey, I am giving you this content for free right to demonstrate that I know how to help fix some problems….which is content marketing isn’t it?).  Even though it is simplified, the answer to the opening question of “what do I provide in the way of content?” becomes clear:

You provide meaningful information that sits at the heart of your professional expertise, and demonstrate how it will solve your target markets problems.

Now that it is clear what sort of stuff becomes good content for your market, the real issue is deciding:

1. How do we want to package the content?  (what will work best for our audience as well as our budget/resources)
2. How are we going to get it delivered to them when they become aware of this awesome material we produce?
3. How are we going to present it so it has appeal to prospects, and where will we look to shout about it so people know we have this awesome stuff waiting for them?

If you can answer those then congratulations are in order: you are on the track to become a content marketing whiz and being recognised by the public as an authority in your area.

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