Teacher reading to preschool students

One of the challenges I run into when creating content and marketing is that I am selfish.  It’s not that I am a bad person (I hope).  It’s just natural that when we sit down to create, we have our own perspective.  I certainly do.  I have the story I want to tell and the point I want to make.

But the best marketing is created with someone else in mind.

That “someone else” is the audience you hope to serve.  You might want to tell that audience about your product or service.  But for the most part, they don’t care about that.  They only care about your offering if it serves them.  They are selfish too.

So when you sit down to create your content or marketing, it’s important to ask yourself a few questions.

• Who is this for?
• Who am I trying to serve with this?
• How will it help them?

If you ask these questions, it does not guarantee that you will create amazing copy, but it’s a good place to start.  Donald Miller talks about this in his amazing book “Building Your Storybrand.”  He says that the problem with most marketing is that it makes the company (or you) the hero of the story.  Miller says you need to use your marketing to make the customer the hero of the story and position your company (or you) as the mentor or the guide.

The customer (or the audience) has a problem they need to solve, and you get to help them.  Your content or marketing should serve them.

If it’s only serving you, it’s likely that you will be the only one interested in the story.

Oh…and speaking of serving…I talk a bit about that in the Monday Minute today.  You can watch that short video here.

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Kirby Hasseman is the CEO of Hasseman Marketing, a full-service marketing agency located in Ohio.  Learn more about Hasseman Marketing here.  And if you are interested in having him speak at your next event, you can learn more here.