Your audience is not dumb.
Most people would nod their heads to that. Yet, most people subconsciously create content thinking their audience is dumb.
They cover basic topics (i.e., What is content marketing?), take too long to reach their point, or cover benefits already understood.
Why does this happen?
- We believe in the HubSpot flywheel and create generalized “awareness” stage content (top of the funnel)
- We create content that we want to make
- We spend little time talking to our customers about our content (feedback)
Regardless of why it happens, treating your audience as stupid will result in crickets when you launch new content.
No one will continually come back to a blog that regurgitates info that they already know. People want something new. They want something different.
“Rather than selling them on your expertise or industry authority, sell them on a new or revolutionary aspect (e.g., if you’re in the consumer electronics industry and are trying to appeal to audiophiles, don’t waste your time explaining the benefits of features they already understand. Unfortunately ‘better sound clarity’ no longer makes the cut).” — Debbie Stampfli from Knotch’s Blog.
When you take the time to create content around a revolutionary aspect or insight, instead of using the Hubspot model, you will show your audience you care and respect their intelligence.
While there may be examples when creating “dumb content” is helpful, I’d argue that there will be fewer as we venture into the future.
There is so much content in the world that we don’t need another “Guide to email marketing.”
We need a revolutionary take on how to use email marketing effectively or differently. And we need to be sure our audience cares.
That’s the perfect balance:
Having something unique to say (a revolutionary aspect) + having an audience that cares about that revolutionary aspect.
This means you must talk with your audience to continually iterate your revolutionary aspects into content that they will devour (care about).
The lesson: Get your next content idea from talking to your audience and putting a different angle on a common topic to avoid treating your audience as dumb.
🧠 // JO