As I sat considering what kind of blog post to write this week before Christmas, I decided that I'd once again share one of the most meaningful pieces of advice I've ever heard. This tidbit comes from the legendary Zig Ziglar, who was (and is) an important figure and an ongoing encourager in my life. His constant refrain throughout much of his literature, video, and audio recordings was, "You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." I can think of no better time of year to ponder the wants and needs of others than the season in which many of us are considering the gifts we'd like to give to others.
An Extended Season of Giving
There is no doubt that Zig was not speaking of Christmas gifts with this statement, but rather, a mindset of sacrifice and generosity that should permeate our lives 365 days a year. The notion is that we can best accomplish our goals when we help others accomplish theirs. It is my belief that content marketing is, in many ways, an excellent strategy by which we can partially accomplish this admirable task. When our prospects or customers search for information about our products and services, we satisfy a fundamental and critical human need, i.e. the need to feel capable, intelligent, consciencious, and confident in decision-making.
Good Gifts
It's called content marketing for a reason of course, i.e. you are creating content for the purpose of helping to sell your products or services. But all honest and credible business people understand that the products or services they offer must geniunely help or meet the needs and desires of a customer, and ultimately be in the customers' best interests. All other endeavors are folly and will ultimately almost always end badly. By providing amazing content that satisfies these basic and important needs, we are stewards of what good gifts we have to offer our prospective customers and we make it easier for them to make wise choices (which hopefully means we also accomplish OUR goals.)
It's Ultimately About Love
All of our efforts to produce great content are futile if they aren't written with the audience's needs in mind. What we are ideally hoping to achieve, of course, is not just acceptance, but a loyal audience that will become our biggest fans. As Mark Schaefer, in his book The Content Code, points out, it's really about love... "Place your focus in just one place—nurturing a truly loyal audience by running your business in a way that demonstrates mutual respect, gratitude, enduring trust, and … dare I say it? Love. Love is not a word usually embraced by businesses, but how can you create unyielding loyalty without it?"
There's no better time, it seems to me, to be reminded that as content marketers we have an excellent opportunity to give out of love and a desire to serve others. How cool is that!?! We are serving others, and if done extremely well, we are likely to see not only the accomplishment of the goals and dreams of others, but also those of ourselves. To me, that makes the season bright!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
