“You are not your customer.”
It’s a good piece of advice, espoused by all types of business pros to encourage people against using their own preferences to make business decisions. (Check out Fast Company’s article from 2013 that still rings true today.)
Because, ultimately, it’s best to listen to your customers — their needs, preferences, and pain points — to create everything from short-term campaigns to new products.
However, you can’t survey your audience before each marketing email or social media post. What’s a small business owner to do?
These two questions will help you create better content that is more likely to keep your audiences engaged.
Ask yourself:
> “Would I consume this content?”
And if the answer is no:
> “Why not?”
🤞 Don’t forget: the content isn’t created for you. So if you wouldn’t read it because it’s too introductory, that’s reasonable. But if the reason you’d tune out is because:
- the blog is an eyesore with large blocks of text …
- the infographic uses colors that make it hard to read …
- the video pacing is slow …
- the cold email is 500 words …
- the content is boring … *
… now is the time to fine-tune it!
So while you aren’t your customer or your ideal audience, you are a content consumer.
If you find your content boring or haphazard or pointless (beware of the trap of commodity content), your audience will likely think the same.
*“Boring” marketing doesn’t mean repetitive marketing. Business pros often conflate the two. Just because you’re bored of your message, doesn’t mean your audience is.