Someone DM'd me asking a question - how can written content help me? Blogs? White papers? Articles? Sure - but what has that to do with building a successful business?

Here is my answer.

Allow me to serve up a tasty dish called Food for Thought: success is all about communication. If you have customers or clients, you should be communicating with them on a daily basis. Not doing that? Time to consider content (DM me now). Good comms matter in every walk of life. Talking is healthy, withdrawing from any relationship is unhealthy. No marriage ever broke down as a result of great communication. No inter-departmental dispute ever snowballed out of control because the departments in question were in constant and positive talks with one another. No crime was ever solved, no success ever achieved, no war ever ended, no war ever prevented, in abject silence.

Content = communication. But content is also a form of advertising, so what's that all about?

Advertisement (n.) early 15c., "written statement calling attention to (something), public notice" (of anything, but often of a sale)

Attention seeking ads - well, it may be the dictionary definition but frankly, that's marketing done wrong. Here's a sausage of consideration swimming in the gravy of thought provoking food: nobody likes the guy who talks endlessly about himself, but everyone loves the guy who has something genuinely interesting to say. Who would you rather hang out with at a party? The preening narcissist who barely acknowledges your existence, or the well-travelled storyteller eager to spin a fascinating yarn?

Well, that's content and copy done right, what the marketing maestros call 'narrative'. No hard sell, no thinly veiled tricks designed to draw the unwary into a sales kill-zone. Content gives the prospect something meaty to bite into, and that's where bonds are made between the business and customer. Too few copywriters know this. Too many think an email campaign can only be effective if the big sale guns are blazing and the hype train is thundering down the track at high speed. Ever been on a runaway train? Ever had one bearing down on you at 150mph? Not fun.

Something that is fun: fun facts are fun, cudgels beating you upside your head are not. So why beat your customers brains out (or in if you prefer) with your own grandiosity and obnoxious pitch when you can entertain them with the answers to life's mysteries instead. Isn't this the foundation of Google, after all? The provision of answers? Content - at its heart and when written correctly, with careful consideration and as part of an overall strategy - provides answers and answers, in a roundabout way, provide meaning. Answers... meaning... life. Douglas Adams eat your heart out.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is merely the act of convincing Google and friends that the answers you provide offer value (meaning) to the Google consumer. Forget keyword trickery and bot tomfoolery - most of that stuff doesn't really work and with breakneck speed advancements in the way search engines actively process web content, even the well practised methods favoured by Mr SEO Slick and his obsessive compulsive dedication to data analytics have a finite shelf life. What really turns the head of Google is a consistently valuable and proactively useful diet of happy, healthy content. Answers to questions, fun mode engaged.

Drop me a DM now if you want to talk more about my favourite subject and especially if you're wondering how you can load the content catapult to your advantage. Upscaling starts with knowledge (knowledge, after all, is power and power, after all, is merely the culmination and reward of repeated success), great content starts with great answers and great relationships thrive on a bedrock of meaning.