I was employee number two at my last company. I joined the company before the product was even built because I believed in the vision. It was a content marketing platform that set out to elevate the position of content by making sure the content got distributed to the right people at the right time. We were working to combat the endless sea of content that exists and separate the signal from the noise for our customers. In retrospect, it’s a leap to join a company pre-product, but looking back it was one of the best career experiences that I’ve ever had. 

I vividly remember onboarding at my kitchen table at the height of the pandemic. My primary purpose out of the gates was to deeply understand the customer for who we were looking to reach. I’ve done a lot of research and investigation of ideal customer profiles over my career, but this was the first time that the profile of our next customer was me. We were trying to attract content marketers and senior level marketers around the topic of content distribution. Of course I had my opinions on what I believed we should do in order to attract people like me, but I knew that I needed to start having as many conversations as possible to help validate those thoughts. I fired up the LinkedIn machine and started reconnecting with many people in my network that fit the profile. I’d ask for 15-20 minutes and would have a set list of questions that I’d ask everyone. At the end of the process my goal was to synthesize down my notes to understand two separate things: 

1. Important information that I could send back to the product team regarding the feedback that I was receiving 

2. Information on how we should build our marketing strategy to resonate with the types of marketers that I was speaking with every day 

After pillaging through documents upon documents of notes a very clear theme began to rise to the surface. 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲. 

The results of hours of conversations confirmed my conviction around the fact that content is a necessity to attract your next customer. The part of the exercise that I wasn’t necessarily expecting was the fact that it couldn’t be any content. It needed to be good content. 

So what makes up good content? 

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is fueled by content. We need content on our website in order to be searchable. We need to be consistently answering the questions of our next customer through our content. There’s a lot of different ways that we can achieve the results that we want, but in order to knock it out of the park our audience must resonate with the content that you’re creating. 

It’s undeniable that SEO can help our content get found. But, you must create good content for people to stay. This means that plopping a bunch of keywords into your next blog post isn’t going to cut it. You can publish a keyword salad full of content, but when your next customer lands on the article they’ll abandon ship the moment they feel like it’s not being helpful. 

In order to grow with content in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 you must take keywords and SEO strategies into consideration, but also write authentically for your reader. This means telling stories, using customer examples, answering questions, and most importantly being helpful. 

It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex where you believe you’ve got to burn and churn through a bunch of content in order for the algorithm to like you. It’s a lot harder to understand the technical side of SEO while also writing like a human. 

Content can be a magnet for your next customer to find you, but it can’t be transactional.  

If you can find the balance between storytelling and SEO you’ll have a line at your digital doorstep of great fit customers ready to buy from you. 

The Content We Dropped This Week

In the sixth episode of 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 podcast we talked with Amanda Liew Hill who runs lifecycle marketing at First Day to explore the topic of navigating being a DTC brand in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲

David led the conversation and we got to learn how the things she’s doing to help First Day stand out, get attention, and create new conversations. There was a ton of really great ideas on tactics and philosophies that you can use to find your next customer. 

Please follow and subscribe to 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 wherever you consume fine audio and video content.

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• YouTube

Quick Tip for The Search Economy

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is about creating the digital infrastructure to not only be found, but resonate with your next customer when they land on your website. The theme of today’s newsletter has been about content and we’ll be talking about this topic more on the podcast, but wanted to share a quick tip on how to keep eyeballs on your content. 

I think using first person point of view in your content is critical to not get skipped through in 2024 and beyond. People want to learn from people and not brands. The more that you can humanize your people’s thoughts, ideas, and strategies through your content the more people will stay. It’s really important to have great SEO, but don’t miss the opportunity to create an authentic connection once your next customer visits your website for the first time. 

What They’re Saying About Search

We’re talking about getting people to stay and convert in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 this week. There’s no one that I follow who provides more great insight on this topic than Masooma. She posts daily tips and advice on how to get your next customer to convert the moment that they land on your site. 

If you’re looking for inspiration on conversion pieces that you should be creating look no further than Masooma’s list. 

If you’re looking for a team that will help give you a jump start into 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 give Pneuma a shout for a free traffic audit!

Content That Supports The Search Economy

We should never think about SEO as a transactional strategy. The more we consider the elements that make up great SEO and view it from a long term lens the more success we will find. I loved this conversation on the Voices of Search podcast around building a scalable strategy. There was so many great tips on how to build your strategy to not only scale, but get seen by your next customer in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲.

You can listen to the conversation here. 

I appreciate you being here for 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 newsletter. If you’re looking to learn more about how your company can get found by your next customer then give the Pneuma team a shout.