Everyone says content marketing is not about selling. They’re wrong, Doug Kessler says. Doug is Creative Director and co-founder of UK-based Velocity Partners, a B2B marketing agency with a strong focus on content strategy. Doug is a displaced Yank who started his career at Ogilvy & Mather, New York. Soap and fabric softener bored him rigid so he jumped ship to specialise in B2B.
Content marketing is always about selling something critical, Doug emphasizes: your world view and your position on the critical issues that shape your market. Breakthrough content marketing always takes a stand. It’s about steering well clear of the middle of the road (where the flattened squirrels are).
At our Content Marketing Conference, the messages in Doug Kessler’s great keynote were clear. Making a stand, among others, means evangelizing your perspective to create converts that will be much easier to sell to.
Doug Kessler’s content marketing advice
We asked Doug to share some practical content marketing tips and in the video below he shares more views.
Doug Kessler:
Ask yourself three questions:
- “What content would I produce if I didn’t need this job?”
- “What do I dare not say but really believe to be true?”
- “What could I say that would actively alienate our worst prospects while attracting our best?”
We also asked him what is one of the most important ways that content marketing creates value for customers.
Doug Kessler: Buyers actually come to you for what you know more than for what you sell. (They just hope that what you know is built into what you sell). But if what you know is what they really, really want, content is a fantastic way to give it to them
The other value that content adds is that it increases people’s trust in you. And better outcomes come from a trust relationship. So the reassurance and confidence that content can instill is actually adding value.
More content marketing wisdom from Doug Kessler
Below is the promised video. Check it out. And also read our interview “Doug Kessler: cowardice is crippling to any content marketing program“.
