Almost every client I’ve met has told me that while they don’t blink at running multi-Million Dollar corporations, they’re very uncomfortable (in fact, some have confessed to being terrified) at creating any type of content for their marketing. When I say ‘content’, I mean writing a blog, a newsletter, making a speech, posting a social media post, recording a video and so on. If you’re in the same leaky boat, here are some ideas on what to do about it:

Embrace The Comfortable

Anne was absolutely against showing her face to the public online. She was convinced that she would sound like an idiot and lose more customers than get new ones from making videos or podcasts or any other form of visibility. But, there was a silver lining: she was a former journalist. So we came up with a written interview series for her targeted CEOs. In this series, she asked them about their success and advice. Sure enough, she was closing business with top CEOs in her target industry in no time. Without once having shown her face to the public. Not every form of visibility is horrible for everyone. Some might even be comfortable. So why not embrace the one that’s less terrifying for you?

The Hiring It Out Cop Out

Jeff’s partners had delegated him as the main marketing person. In truth, all were equal partners in a very large consulting firm. But through his outgoing personality, he had gotten the sticky job. Not wanting to figure out how to create content, he immediately hired an off-shore third-party to produce articles about their industry and to crank it out to every social media channel. After years, their ROI was nil from this endeavour. Once I came on the scene as their marketing strategist, we created a niche with a clear target industry and a specific pain that we positioned them as experts in solving. After that, I asked each partner to tell stories of success about this pain that they solved. Within a few hours, their entire year’s content calendar was created. They let their content creator go because they realized that all the knowledge was in their head and no third party could ever come close to being able to educate the market like they could about this topic. You don’t need a generic content creator who neither knows your strategies nor war stories. You are the message.

Pain Sound-Bytes

The only thing you need to do to effortlessly create captivating content that converts is to figure out who exactly your target industry or interest group is and then to literally map out their pain sound-bytes around the topic that you’re an expert in. For example, my super-niched target is the interest group of Diverse certified businesses. These are businesses who have been certified by a governing body as having an owner who belongs to a minority group like women, veterans, African Americans or LGBTQs. When these business owners are introduced to prospective corporate buyers at conferences and trade shows, their pain sound bytes go something like this: “how come nobody asks me for a meeting after I do my elevator pitch?”, “how do I by-pass the diversity officer to get to my real buyer?”, “how do I stand out in a sea of competitors vying for the buyer’s attention at this table?” etc. These are literally the titles of my last 3 keynotes at these same conferences. See how easy it is to crank out that content?

The true solution to ending the content creation terror is in figuring out your super-niche. If you are targeting everyone or have no specific differentiated specialty around an expensive pain point, then you need to figure that out pronto and end your content creation nightmares.

Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch my Podcast on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.