In this fast-paced, high-pressure, sales-oriented world, many are hungry for CONTENT. That’s right, something they can actually use to make their job easier or help them better understand issues and face challenges. In another word—information!

Unfortunately many of the newsletters or subscription feeds take advantage of you when you sign up. They bombard you with way too much stuff and most of it is not useful. If you decide that you have great content to share and want to be known as an expert there are many benefits including awareness of your business and new customer leads. But, if you choose to share your knowledge here are a few things I have discovered that might be helpful.

Define an area of expertise.  You simply cannot be an expert at everything and people spot a fake very quickly. If your content is “thin” or simply not relevant they will tune you out. In addition, you want to be sure that you remain an expert. If you don’t keep up, at the very least, and constantly try new things you will simply be one of many “voices” or what many deem as noise.

Don’t take the easy way out. If you really are an expert at something then try to find the best possible way to share that information. Maybe you create a well-planned, well laid- out Q & A piece. Perhaps you write a case study. Maybe you create a great info-graphic that engages the viewer. I always love video because it is the medium of choice today. Whatever you choose remember that the communication is a reflection of your business. If you are not going to do it well, don’t do it at all.

Understand your purpose. This one can be tricky. Are you giving away content so that you can attract potential new clients? Do you want to better educate your existing clients? Do you want to become known as a subject matter expert so that you get more media attention?  Once you figure this out it will help with the tone of your communications and also the delivery mechanism  or mechanisms.  Give your audience the content through multiple platforms so they can choose which one is best for them.  Will you blog to the world? Share through social media channels or send communications to a targeted prospect list?

Have a communication plan. If you want to provide content then you have to develop a plan…and editorial calendar so that you have a pipeline for information rather than do a lot of work for a one-time effort. I have seen lots of people start out with good intentions but the effort stalls because they tried to do too much. For example, we have a video newsletter that my company sends out, but we only send it quarterly. If we tried to do more, it would be difficult to manage and I believe would not get as much attention. People tells us that they look forward to our newsletter because of the timing and because it is easy to digest. We also make it easy for those who get our video newsletter to share it.

Provide some “extras.” If there is an area of content where you can develop a series of communications that are more in-depth, this can be a vehicle for additional touch points. For example, I am working on a series of communications around my area of expertise—video production. The series is called Video 101 and in it we educate the viewer about the use of video, the phases of production, how to hire an expert and when to do it yourself.  This is not a promotion for my business. It really is about providing content. If you want to see the series go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OYtR2T4_YM.

 If you have knowledge to share there is no better time than now to get started. People do want great content and technology makes it easy to deliver the content. More about that next week.