Once you have an idea of the need you are addressing, it’s time to come up with a content marketing strategy to solve that need.

But before you start throwing all your ideas at your audience, remember that intelligent content marketing is a strategic approach. Don’t start fishing by grabbing the nearest shotgun and shooting into the water. Instead, take a look at what’s in your tackle box.

 

The Four E’s of Delivering a Content Marketing Strategy

There are four main ways an intelligent content marketing plan can deliver value to your ideal audience: Entertain, Educate, Excite, or Exclusivize. Each of them attracts attention in a different way.

 

1) Entertain

Here, your audience says “I would pay attention to this, even if I had no intention of ever doing business with you.”

A show like Duck Dynasty is a form of entertaining content marketing from Duck Commander. Most of the millions who watch the show tune in for the entertainment value, not because they are planning on buying a duck call. (Conveniently, duck call orders happened to go up 500% the year after their first season aired.)

Another example is the Farmed and Dangerous television series from Chipotle. The content has nothing to do with delicious Tex-Mex food. Chipotle has aligned and associated itself with a more universal message: industrialized food sources are not good. They want to entertain their ideal audience, while at the same time associating themselves with a common message.

Or suppose you have an auto parts store. You could start a weekly comic strip featuring some of the humorous things that happen around the store. Someone could enjoy it even if they have no idea what a carburetor is.

All of these examples are primarily forms of entertainment. A business chooses a common bonding idea with their Ideal Audience (family, natural food, humor), and delivers something valuable.

All of the 4 E’s can be applied at any ARC, but each of them has a place they work best. Entertaining works great specifically in the Uninformed or Uninterested circles. It should be very shareable, captivating, and appeal to someone even if they don’t care about your product.

 

2) Educate

Now your audience says, “I would pay attention to this if I was trying to learn about this field.”

If you are the educator, you function as a mentor who comes along and guides someone to learn something new. Educating is the ideal way to deliver value for Window Shoppers, Researchers, and Evaluators.

Shutterstock, a digital stock image company, recently started a service called Skillfeed, which teaches you how to take great pictures and videos. They’ve priced this content separately (an example of a media marketing asset that generates revenue), but it is obvious how it contributes to the overall business goals of Shutterstock.

Saddleback Leather sells top quality leather goods. However, if none of their audience understood the difference between full grain leather and bonded leather, they would have a hard time justifying their prices. If you offer a high-value service, the more educated your ideal audience is, the better.

People love to be educated, and if you prove to be a worthy teacher, they will transfer that trust over to your business relationship as well.

 

3.) Excite

Here, your audience says, “I would pay attention to this if it was remarkably different than everything I am used to.”

This method works best if your Ideal Audience is people who have been entrenched in an industry for a long time. They get the game. They understand the system. They know what works and what doesn’t. If you are in a B2B space, this might be your best option.

Then you enter as the disrupter. You bring a voice that is very unique. You rustle feathers. You go further than anyone else has gone. You redraw boundaries.

Think of the classic Get a Mac ads comparing Macs and PCs. While the content was entertaining, its primary purpose was to draw a boundary between the two machines. Who could identify better with acknowledging the limitations of a PC than consumers who had been using PCs for years?

McDonald’s in Canada recently started a website called Our Food, Your Questions. The fast food industry can be notorious for keeping secrets about where food comes from, how it is prepared, etc. McDonald’s decided to take a very different approach, and completely opened itself up to consumers’ questions. They raised the bar for transparency, something that was lacking in the fast-food industry.

Exciting an audience is a great way to build strong loyalty, because you are often the first one to do something in a unique way. Consumers aren’t used to that, and will respect your efforts (if they believe in what you are saying). If you have a large Ideal Audience that feels a strong sense of loyalty to you, business tends to take care of itself.

Delivering value through excitement can work really well in the Evaluator, Experiencer, and Repeat Buyer circles.

 

4) Exclusivize

Here, your audience says, “I would pay attention to this if you give me a community or information that is heavily restricted to insiders.”

To exclusivize is to create scarcity. That scarcity might be in the form of membership (only people with 20 years of experience are allowed) or information (these investment tips only go out to elite clients).

This method of delivery is great if you offer a highly specialized service that only a few people know the value of. Your target audience is probably not a mass group, but a smaller core of people who really understand. These are the early adopters, the passionate, the geeks. The ARCs you might target here are Repeat Buyers and Sharers.

One example of exclusivizing is Jay Baer’s Social Pros Podcast. Every week, he interviews someone who is at the forefront of social media for large brands. While the podcast can be heard by everyone (and might be a way to educate certain audiences), it is an ‘honor’ to be selected for the podcast. He is creating an exclusive club of people who are doing ‘real work’ in social media. Those who are interviewed (who also happen to be Jay’s Ideal Audience) get a sense that this is something special for them, and they pay close attention to who will be interviewed next.

If you think exclusivizing is the right path, you can play one of two roles. If you are a respected, longstanding voice in your industry, you can be the leader of the exclusive tribe. You offer deep domain knowledge with the most cutting-edge information. People will soon know that you are the source for the best content.

But if that doesn’t describe you, don’t write off exclusivizing. You don’t always have to be the smartest person in the room to exclusivize. Maybe you just own the room.

You can create the space where all the thought leaders come together. You build relationships with those people, send invitations, sell the tickets, and create the room (physical or digital) where the top information is shared. If you do it right, people will beg to be let in.

 

Your Move

Using the 4 E’s is a great way to get creative about reaching your audience with your content marketing strategy. It is likely that your media choice will incorporate more than one of the 4 E’s, but one of them should be the primary one. Each Audience needs something unique, and you can give something that no one else has done. Where are the holes in your industry, and where can you provide the most value?