Thumbnail: Weekly Wisdom with Jason Barnard: The Five P’s of Ongoing Content

Originally Published on SEMrush July 30, 2019 (Jason Barnard)

Modified Transcript

Hi, I am Jason Barnard. Welcome to Weekly Wisdom on SEMrush. Today I am going to talk to you about the five Ps for your ongoing content strategy, to build an audience. Importantly, a pertinent qualified audience. What are the five Ps? Platform, public, personality, promotion, and perseverance.

1. Platform — One That Suits You and Your Audience

Let’s start with platform. What do I mean about a platform? You need to make sure that you choose a platform, or a format that suits you, and your users. It could be video, it could be a webinar, it could be a podcast series, or it could be a blog, it could be a newsfeed, or maybe even a gallery if you are a photographer.

What is important is that it appeals to your audience and that you are comfortable with it, and it applies to your business. You also need to find a platform on which to broadcast. That could be YouTube, it could be your website, it could be a blogging platform such as Blogger or Medium, or a podcasting website such as Blubrry.

The two go together — the format you choose and the platform you broadcast from. Make sure that you are comfortable with both. Make sure that you can maintain quality content, and make sure your audience can access them easily.

2. Public — Does it Correspond with Your Product? 

Next is the public. You need to make sure that the public corresponds to your product, and that there is a “public” on the platform that you have chosen, who will want to consume the media that you are producing. That might sound very obvious, but it isn’t. Because if we come back to that idea of qualified, pertinent people, who are genuinely interested in the products or the services you are selling; that isn’t quite so easy as it might look.

But make sure that that audience is pertinent and quantified. 

3. Personality — Varies by Audience

Next, you need a personality. When I say personality, I don’t mean jokes in your face or a TV personality with big balloons flying off. 

I mean a personality that corresponds to the audience that you have chosen — the public that corresponds to your product or your service. So if it is an educational website, you need to have a personality that is teacher-like. If it is a sports website or a sports products, you need somebody who is dynamic, who looks like they do sport and doesn’t eat McDonald’s and drink Coca Cola in front of the camera.

If it is a medical site, you need somebody reassuring. If it is gamers website, you need somebody who looks the part. You don’t want a 50-year-old man such as myself. You want a young person playing these games, who knows about it and truly understands what it is they are talking about. And then you need to make sure that that corresponds to your audience.

You need to make that match between the audience, their expectations, their needs, their likes, their preferences, and the person or the personality you are getting across.

ANeeded Brand Personality

When I talk about personality, I don’t necessarily mean just one person. If that one person leaves your company, you have a problem. So if you have three or four people sharing the burden of creating this content, and using their personality to project onto your product or your service and push that over to the users, then if somebody leaves the company, there will not be a big gap in your content.

So look let us say it is your own product, your own service, and perhaps you can do the whole thing yourself – the personality is you. But if it is not, hedge your bets. Make sure that you have got a variety of people, or a variety of personalities so you can replace them if needs be. 

4. Promotion — Online and Offline 

Next is promotion; very underestimated. A lot of companies, a lot of brands create content and then do not promote it properly, which is a real pity. Make sure that you promote it properly and that you choose the correct channel for promotion.

It can be influencer marketing, it could be email, or it could be a platform such as Pinterest for images if you are a photographer, for example. Other social media platforms, LinkedIn is much more towards the business side. Twitter is more towards quick exchanges. Facebook is more friendly. You might want to use advertising; that is a perfectly legitimate way to build your audience, get your content out there to people who are interested.

That M is meetup. Maybe you want to go offline, and I think offline is very much underestimated. If you are offline, you can talk to people; you can build real relationships. And that is a great way to build up an audience, but also an audience who will then vouch for you, and amplify your signal.

Because that personal relationship when you have actually met somebody, is much stronger than an online relationship that you might have built up through email, or through Twitter, or through LinkedIn, or whatever social platform it might be. I am a big fan today of offline marketing, offline promotion.

5. Perseverance — Slow and Steady

That is the big one, and it is what most brands forget. You have a content channel, you create content, and you need perseverance. It might take a year, it might take two years, but you are going to build your audience slowly. If you build it too quickly, it is not going to be a solid audience that trusts you.

You want an audience that trusts you, that believes in you; a true, real qualified, pertinent audience. And for that you need perseverance. You need to be there week in, week out, for a long period of time to prove your worth, so that those people then trust you. Then you can start to say, “Now I can sell to them. Now I can present my products and services, and expect them to buy it because I have brought them this great value and they believe in me. They trust in me, and will buy from me.”

Now You Know the 5 P’s

So, the five Ps of content marketing, platform, public personality, promotion, perseverance. How do these impact your marketing campaigns? Is there an element you recommend that I didn’t mention? Share your thoughts in the comments. 

Thanks a lot for listening, and we will see you next time on Weekly Wisdom.

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