One of the best rappers in history, the late Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious B.I.G., penned a massive hit with The 10 Crack Commandments.
And by way of a doff of the cap to Mr Smalls and good old Moses back in the day, I’ve come up with the 10 Content Commandments you might want to follow if you are serious about your agency cracking content marketing.
- Thou shalt not be salesy. It’s about helping and telling, not advertising and selling. Remember the HITS mantra – is your content Helpful, Interesting, Trustworthy and Scheduled.
- Honour your community – don’t simply pitch to a ‘market’. The reader/viewer is giving you their most valuable asset – their time – treat it respectfully by only putting good content in front of them.
- Thou shalt not be boring. If it doesn’t interest you, it probably won’t interest them.
- Thou shalt not steal. If you didn’t write it, pay for it, or credit the source, it’s stealing. And it’s never been easier to catch people copying your content. We catch at least three agencies each month who are too cheap to pay for content. They shall be damned for all eternity.
- Thou shalt not tell lies. The property market isn’t always ‘buoyant’ or ‘buzzing’. If you tell people it’s not going to rain and they leave the house without an umbrella, they will blame you for getting wet if it does.
- Thou shalt not be impatient. Content marketing takes time to work. Therefore, you need to view it as an ongoing process, not a once-in-a-blue-moon event.
- Thou will remember RIP – Results in Print – print marketing isn’t dead, it’s just changed. It needs to be more concise, clever and consistent.
- Always avoid jargon such as vendor, applicant, laid to lawn and double aspect. These are cardinal estate agent content sins.
- Thou shalt not shun technology. QR codes are here to stay, and it’s borderline blasphemous (towards the content gods) not to use them (or at least consider them) in your marketing efforts.
- Thou shall be different. Bland is banned. For your content to stand out, it needs to be different, interesting, well produced and even a little brave.
Amen (Moses) and Peace Out (Biggie).
Thanks for reading.
Jerry