Lessons I’ve learnt from 21 years of creating brand content

We’re not saying he’s old as such… but Martin’s been creating killer brand content for
21 years. And here is, still smiling, still writing, still living the brand content dream.

Twenty-one years ago, when I started out creating content (well, being paid to create content – I had a long and distinguished career of self-publishing between the age of six and 12), I considered myself to be working in journalism. 

See, I landed a job as a subeditor (remember them?) on a series of business-to-business retail magazines; some monthly, some bi-monthly. Some a rather strange in-betweeny frequency. 

Subscriptions were sold, as was ad space, and thousands of copies printed and sent to retailers across the UK. 

The ratio of subscriptions to copies mailed out, though, certainly wasn’t 1:1. Thousands of free copies were sent out to ‘good’ retailers too. Circ figures impressed advertisers, of course, but there was more to it. 

You see, our company also organised some of the biggest events in the UK, where our readers and advertisers got together twice a year. And in every issue of our magazines, those events were – sometimes subtly, sometimes not-so-subtly – featured. 

All of our content was bloody good, even if I do say so myself. We had some great writers, some of the top freelancers and a brilliant in-house team. The magazines would stand alone in terms of quality. 

But they were there to serve one primary purpose – to connect our event audiences throughout the year; to bridge the gap between exhibitions. And, of course, to promote them more than we promoted anything else. 

It was only a few years later, when working for a custom-publishing-house-turned-content-marketing-agency, that I looked back and realised what we’d been doing all of those years ago was content marketing. Brand content. Whatever you want to call it. 

So here are my top lessons I’ve learnt from 21 years of creating brand content. 

Understand your
target audience 

It’s an obvious one to start, but it’s a step that’s still missed by a lot of people creating content today. Twenty-one years ago, we used to get out of the office and have conversations with our readers. Under the guise of writing a city shopping review, I used to go to different cities across the UK every month, and spend the day talking to retailers. My old Ford Fiesta certainly clocked up the miles, and I got a whole host of great story ideas. Telephone conversations were preferred to email then too, and that was another reliable way to pick up an envisaged insight or two. Of course, online survey tools are brilliant for collecting mass insights, however, don’t underestimate the power of conversation when understanding your audience.  

Understand why
you’re creating content 

At the outset, you need to identify your content purpose. Just why are you spending time and money doing this? Ultimately, for the vast majority of brands, it is about engaging your audience, remaining front of mind, with the intention of when they’re in a position to purchase, you’re there – and you’ve earned some trust. 

Use your experts 

As a business, you have so much collective knowledge – and that collective knowledge is immensely powerful. Add into that mix the knowledge your business partners and your network has, and you have all of the insights you need. Of course, you need someone to tease that information out of them, to create stories that meet your audience’s needs, but by using your people you can create content that’s uniquely yours. 

Resist the urge! 

In your content, there’s a specific place for your sales messages and to talk about the features of your product or service. And that’s when a prospective customer is ready to make a purchasing decision. Back in the retail event world, our sales messages naturally got stronger in the couple of months before the exhibition. It was a similar story when I worked with some of Australia’s top associations who all had events for their members. But still, that overt sell was a small percentage of the content we created. 

Identify the intersection

Instead of sell, sell, sell, look at that intersection of what your brand does and what your prospective customer needs. HINT: Your prospective customer probably doesn’t need your product or service. They may want what it enables them to feel or do. So focus on that. Today, we work with insurance companies. In reality, no-one wants insurance, but they do want to feel safe and secure. They want to minimise their risk. So talk about that. 

Be useful 

Once you’ve identified that intersection, it becomes easier to create content your audience will find genuinely useful. So, if you are an insurance company, create content on how to maintain your car so it’s always safe to drive. Or when it comes to the wet season, how to minimise the damage that a flood may cause. If you’re a recruitment company, create content on just how to recruit the ideal candidate. You’re not giving away secrets, you’re demonstrating just how much thought, care, science and art goes into a process that your prospective client may be tempted to do themselves. By demonstrating the depth of your knowledge you’re showing what great looks like – and that becomes very desirable. 

Use your content
to connect 

Your content can also help you connect your business with people you want to align with – whether it’s prospective clients or industry experts. By inviting them to be interviewed for an article, whitepaper, podcast or video, you’re starting an easy conversation, building connections and giving them exposure. You’re also putting your brand front of mind and aligning with those you want your brand aligned with.  

Don’t lock content away… not much of it, anyway 

I remember many conversations with professional and industry associations who had vats of ‘member-only’ content – and were very, very reluctant to open it up to the public. And that position is understandable. However, unless your business is publishing, then your content isn’t your product – your content leads people to your product. 

Of course, if you have a member-only site that has more content on, deeper dives, downloadables, educational material, then that makes perfect sense. Or if you use some content for data collection – for example, give us your email address and you can download our home insurance checklist.