Ground your marketing content with strategy

Exploring the earth element in your writing

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

Why does some content work to engage an audience while other content falls flat? Is it just a mystical mystery that’s out of our human reach? 

I don’t think so.

Think about the best books you’ve ever read. If you’re not a reader, think of your favorite movie, poem or song. 

How did the magic happen? How did the author create something that hits all the right notes and becomes special to you? Was it simply a stroke of luck, genius, God-given talent? 

Maybe. Sometimes. But mostly, strong writing is born from a commitment to planting words on the page, day after day after day, and curiously experimenting, editing and refining. 

The good news is you don’t have to be a professional writer to produce writing that makes a difference.

In my opinion, four underlying energetic elements work together to make a piece of content come alive — no clickbait or manipulative marketing required:

• Earth (structure)

• Air (theme/values)

• Fire (passion)

• Water (emotion)

Woven together, an essence— or spirit— is created. 

(Please note, the bullets above are a very simplistic outline of the energetic elements of writing that I will continue to explore in more depth in this Substack, starting today with the Earth element.) 

When you come across a piece of writing or listen to a presentation infused with these key elements, it connects with you at soul level. 

You can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it excites or inspires you. Perhaps it makes you laugh, cry, or get angry. It moves you.

You feel nourished at an intellectual and emotional level.

And you are driven to take action in some way, whether that’s purchasing the product or service or simply talking about and sharing the content with your friends, family or colleagues. 

When an author or speaker shares their passion and it lands with their audience in a meaningful way, they’ve achieved something truly exciting. Like the trace of a fingerprint, they’ve left an imprint from one soul to another. A seed of connection.

When we deliver infectious content infused with intention, purpose and clarity, great things can happen for our businesses. 

And yet, so much of business writing falls flat. It’s boring and doesn’t inspire action.

Just look at the hundreds of emails sitting in your inbox right now destined for the click and suck of the trash button.

So how do we take a more intentional approach to content and create meaningful content that resonates with our intended audience? 

We get strategic.

What is content strategy?

From websites, blog posts, presentations and email campaigns to podcasts, bios and social media, strategy represents the earth element—the bedrock— of your business. 

Like a puzzle in which all of the pieces fit together, a strategic approach to content helps our businesses vibrate at a higher level of communication. 

Instead of wasting precious time throwing content at the wall to see what sticks, content strategy supports your vision and provides a roadmap of what content needs to be produced and why.

Content strategy includes:

• Exploration of your business goals to ensure every piece of content aligns with your overall mission, vision, purpose and values.

• Audience research. Understanding exactly who your audience is and what drives their behaviors.

• Content analysis. An audit of every piece of content you’ve produced for your business, across all platforms. Which pieces resonated with your ideal audience? Are there gaps in content that you could be taking advantage of? Is there content you could repurpose? Is there content that is confusing your ideal audience?

• SEO keyword research. Are you using the right keywords that are relevant to your audience?

• Competitor analysis. What are your competitors doing? What aren’t they doing that you could be doing? 

Because this is such an essential part of creating a strong digital business platform, in 2024, I’m adding content strategy, content analysis and strategic consulting to my writing services. 

And I’ll continue to share ideas with you here that help you move the needle toward creating stronger, meaningful content that helps you strengthen your brand and differentiates your business in a distracting online environment. 

If you’d like to start thinking more strategically about your content, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my goal? What do I want to achieve in my business?

• Is the content that I’m producing supporting these goals? 

• Who is my audience? What do they care about? Do I understand their problem?

Got questions or comments? Leave a comment below or respond to this email. I’d love to hear from you!