Page 63 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

showcasing objective opinions on your website may increase your
credibility among potential customers.
Consider hosting a customer of the week program on your blog and on
social media. Feature a story and testimonial from one of your satisfied
customers.
Hold a monthly contest with the staff. Nothing motivates like a cash
prize! For example, if the store gets 20 reviews by the end of the month,
you’ll draw a name and that person wins the cash.
Recognize staff members who get 5-star reviews. A gift or a nice
mention during the weekly sales meeting goes a long way. When the other
employees see it, they’ll be eager to be recognized, too.

14. Be practical.
In Chapter 1, I recounted the story of the Mirabeau Miracle. The winery’s
proprietor, Stephen Cronk, made YouTube history with a 90-second video
showing how to open a wine bottle with his shoe.

This was not epic content. It wasn’t even original. The trick had been done
multiple times before on YouTube. The Mirabeau case study doesn’t seem to
follow any rules about emotion or storytelling. But it’s an amazing, well-
executed little demonstration, and it was a practical, useful tip.

In the book Contagious, Jonah Berger explains, “Today, direct opportunities
to help others are few and far between. Modern suburban life has distanced us
from our friends and neighbors. We live at the end of a long driveway or high up
in an apartment building, often barely getting to know the person next door.

“But sharing something useful with others is a quick and easy way to help
people out, even if we’re not in the same place. Parents can send their kids
useful advice even if they are hundreds of miles away. Passing along useful
things strengthen social bonds. Our friends see we know and care about them,
we feel good for being helpful, and the sharing cements our friendship.”

People love to help their friends save money, so building extraordinary value
or a deal into your content is a way to help it move. Not surprisingly, the bigger
the perceived deal or the more exclusive it appears, the more the content moves.

Curation is another good way to provide practical content. Curating or
summarizing valuable content by industry, career discipline, or interest saves
people time because you’ve done the work to filter content for them. In the
pharmaceutical industry, summaries of new surgical or medical breakthroughs
are a good way to bond with doctors and provide truly useful information.
Several wealth management companies curate global financial information to
make the world of investing less complicated. You can find opportunities to