A high school teacher friend just told me something that made me upset, at first.
By the end of the Spring 2020 semester, he was having to teach remotely, and our school district made it known that students will not receive letter grades, only Pass/Fail.
On a recent teacher parent/teacher call regarding a lack of assignments being turned in by their child, the parent simply said: “If he ain’t getting credit, he’ ain’t gonna do the work.”
I know. There’s a lot to unpack there.
But let’s look at this from a content marketing standpoint. Obviously, neither this student nor his parent(s) are motivated by learning for learning’s sake. The knowledge isn’t the reward that motivates them. It’s the letter grade. The certificate. The number or ranking.
So my friend’s suggestion that the student might want to learn these things so he’s ready for the following school year fell on deaf ears.
And so it is with (probably) much of your content marketing.
Is your message falling on deaf ears because it’s not delivering the reward, value, or solution your potential customers want? Do you even know what they want? Chances are, their value systems are vastly different than yours.
Great, but how do I know what’s important to them?
Ask? That’s easy, right?
Run a survey contest where they can win a prize for responding. Ask your current customers why they bought from you. Ask others why they didn’t buy from you. Don’t judge, just listen and learn. Then put out new and different content that rewards them the way they want.
Your value proposition must match their values.