The Content Is King Trend In Sales & Marketing

Can I tell you how my airplane is the safest because it's made from the finest materials?

There’s a funny thing about selling. Of course you need something to sell. Sure you need a customer. And you need a way to get your thing to sell in front of that customer.

But what you really need is a good story.

That’s why I find the premise of “content is king” being tossed around among online marketers, bloggers and social media “gurus” amusing. To an extent they are right. Content can move consumers to action. Where the premise of “content is king” falls short is that it glosses over the quality aspect of said content. It’s the quality of the content that is critical. Not the mere fact you poses content.

The best stories have an emotional connection.

Here are a couple of examples…

Lands’ End, in its hey day, used a team of superior writers to create expansive stories about its products. One I recall was how the finest cashmere sweaters were created – beginning with the shearing of goats in Mongolia. Another story was about the people living on the Kewweenaw Peninsula of Michigan (average snowfall 236 inches every year – snowiest place in the US) got through winter, perhaps with the help of Lands’ End’s outerwear. Why did Lands’ End go to the ends of the earth to create these stories? Lands’ End knew its customers loved to tell, their friends or at a cocktail party, how their cashmere sweater came to be. And that created a connection between the sweater owner and the brand.

Or more currently, Apple’s iPad spots do the same. Each commercial is not about how many apps there are or about memory or speed. Apple sells the premise that you can do what you already do (read books, make phone calls, learn about something new) but you’ll never do the same way again. The principle at work here is – if you love to read books, well you’ll certainly love the new iPad 2.

Next time you are approached with the “content is king” statement there’s a simple response. What’s the story? Tell me how this content creates a connection with my consumers. Any sales and marketer worth his salt should be able to tell you in 15 seconds or less how the story creates the connection.