Get out of your office. Seriously.
While you and your team may brainstorm some phenomenal ideas, the actual gold is "out there."
Where is "out there?" It's in the mind of someone other than you and your team.
For some companies, it may be a subject matter expert (SME). For others, someone else has the key to better content:
Your customers.
Instead of hiring or outsourcing an SME to write your content, tap into the people who keep your lights on. (Technically, it does not have to be an either/or situation, but I'm a contrarian, so I had to take the edgy take.)
You may push back and state that your SME's create content that is trusted and revered by your audience because it's by an "expert." But, sadly, we live in the age of "experts."
Instead of my elegant words persuading you that SME's don't carry the same weight, let me use Gartner's report, 5 Ways the Future of B2B Buying Will Rewrite the Rules of Effective Selling, to make my point:
"High-quality supplier information no longer provides as clear differentiation as it did just a few short years ago. Our recent customer survey on information quality showed 89% of buyers felt the information they encountered in a recent purchase was generally of high quality, relevant and evidenced." But that doesn't mean they're acting on it. In the same report, the authors add that 50% of respondents said, "The amount of trustworthy information we encountered as part of this purchase was overwhelming."
SME content is no longer a differentiation. It's vanilla.
What isn't vanilla? Using your customers to help you create content.
How do you that?
"Gather and share interviews, survey findings, and feedback directly from them. Build relationships with them. They will feel appreciated and respected, and you'll have a new way to market your product–one that feels unbiased and decidedly human." — Debbie Stampfli from Knotch's Blog.
"…decidedly human." That phrase stood out to me.
How much content out there today feels, "Human?"
Not much. Sadly.
Having customers as your SME works for two reasons:
- It creates unbiased content that makes your company look good
- It produces content people can connect to, building trust
When's the last time you tapped into your audience to create content?
🧠 // JO