How to Use Your Content to Find New Business Opportunities

By Lisa Petrilli | Published: May 27, 2010

Remember when Hamlet said, “The play’s the thing…?” He had just come to the realization that he could use his ingenious content (his play) to gauge the reaction of his audience (King Claudius) in order to determine if the king was guilty of murder.

For the most part you’re not likely using your content to gauge your customer’s guilt in regard to anything quite so sinister. But, like Hamlet, you should be highly focused on understanding your customer’s reaction to your content.

Why?

  1. If you are not helping them with their pain points then they will look to your competitors for such help
  2. If they respond positively to your content, you may be able to find ways to further build on what you are currently providing to enrich their experience even more

Case in point:

I had the honor and pleasure of seeing Jonathan Fields present at SOBCon2010 about the birth and growth of his business. He talked about how he had built a business that he was passionate about and how he wanted to share his experiences with others in a book. But he didn’t know how to go about becoming an author and marketing himself that way.

In investigating the best approach he discovered that there was no resource out there for aspiring authors, in particular on how to use social media to market your new book. So, he wrote an (brilliant and highly regarded) eBook. And then he closely gauged the reaction to the eBook. His point to the audience? “I was testing the viability of the idea that there was an audience for the subject.”

The response was overwhelming (and I’ve referred several new authors to his eBook just in the last week alone) and led to the creation of Tribal Author Camps (in-person events where 25 aspiring authors learn the secrets that Jonathan learned) and is now leading to online webinars because the response to the Camps has been so positive.

Jonathan could have released the eBook and been done with it. Instead – he made understanding the response to his content, the eBook, pivotal in his business strategy, which in turn has led to opportunities to which he never would otherwise have been led.

How about you? How closely are you monitoring your customer’s response to your content? And what do you do with that information? Please let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!

This entry was posted in Content Marketing Case Studies, Content Marketing Examples, eBooks, How-To and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Author: Lisa Petrilli

Lisa Petrilli is Chief Executive Officer of C-Level Strategies, Inc., Chief Operating and Marketing Officer for the global To Be a Woman platform, and Chief Relationship Officer for CEO Connection. She is passionate about cultivating visionary leadership. Lisa is also the author of, “The Introvert’s Guide to Success in Business and Leadership,” an Amazon Best-Selling eBook and “Hot New Release” on its launch day. The eBook is featured at Huffington Post, is available at www.TheIntrovertsGuide.net, and inspired her Harvard Business Review article, “An Introvert’s Guide to Networking.” She blogs about leadership at her own Visionary Leadership Blog, for the Lead Change Group, and her blog posts are syndicated at Lead Digital, Business to Consumer, and Alltop. Lisa is also Co-Founder and Co-Leader of Leadership Chat, www.LeadershipChat.net, a Twitter chat held every Tuesday evening that is attended by leaders from around the globe and is on pace to drive 500 million online impressions annually. She is a consultant, blogger and advisor at Content Marketing Institute, can be found on Twitter as @LisaPetrilli, and may be reached at Lisa@CLevelStrategies.com.

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  • http://blog.junta42.com Joe Pulizzi

    Thanks Lisa…I love the “pain points” analogy. That really hits home with marketers when I do in-person speeches. Most brands think about this from a product or service perspective, not a content perspective. Well done.

  • http://www.lisapetrilli.com/ Lisa Petrilli

    Thank you, Joe!

    I've learned from Bob Lambert – a fellow MENG Member who runs Samurai Business Group – to think about pain points in a variety of situations. Knowing that we, as humans, buy for three reasons (1) we're in pain (2) we are experiencing fear (3) there is an opportunity for gain – helps me as a marketer to ensure I'm addressing these possibilities with my clients/customers.

    I think keeping this concept in mind is imperative as we, as marketers, create content.

  • http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

    Hi Lisa – Great post. It underscores an important insight which Advertising professionals have long exploited — we buy on emotion. Pain. Fear. Hope in the opportunity. Often the persuasion of how our products and services might help are well addressed with good photography and illustrations — an important part of “content.” Do you know what method Jonathan used to study the reaction to his ebook?

  • http://www.lisapetrilli.com/ Lisa Petrilli

    Hi Scott,

    I love that you point out how good photography and illustrations become part of that content! I don't know what method Jonathan used but I am headed to Twitter to ask him… :)

    All the best – thanks for taking the time to comment,
    Lisa

  • http://www.blue-ferret.com/ BlueFerret

    I often say to clients, “Lack of response is still a response.” As in, your current content isn't bringing you good results? Your audience took a look, didn't find a solution to their problem, and went over to your competitors.

    Now there's a pain point!

    An excellent concept to highlight Lisa. Content isn't static at all; we still have to monitor what reaction you get, and figure out the response to give.

  • jonathanfields

    Scott, I looked at a number of metrics, including number of downloads, pick up across social media and retweets on twitter, traffic to the site, views of the document on hosted sites where it was also posted as well as more subjective feedback like emails and DMs to me about it and links form other blogs.

    Also, the information in the content I released was based on my experience marketing my last traditionally-printed book, Career Renegade, so I believed the report had a lot of value. Hope that helps!

  • http://www.globalcopywriting.com/ globalcopywrite

    Hi Lisa,

    Honestly? I'm probably not doing a great job of monitoring my customer reactions because nearly everything I write is approved by the customer before it's published. (As the name implies, I'm a copywriter.) That approval process often results in a round or two of editing.

    I agree wit the comment from BlueFerret about “lack of response is still a response”. If a client has no feedback for me, whatsoever, it's almost always an indication they were less than thrilled with what I gave them.

    Thanks for giving me some insight on where I can improve my own business processes.

  • http://www.lisapetrilli.com/ Lisa Petrilli

    Excellent point! Lack of response is absolutely a response…thank you so much for pointing that out. And thank you for the kind words. :)

  • http://www.lisapetrilli.com/ Lisa Petrilli

    Sarah, what a great observation and insight about your own business – I just love it! I had not even thought about it from a copywriter's perspective, and you highlight a truly interesting point.

    Thank you so much for sharing and I am thrilled that it provided some insight for you.