Content is an almost deceptively powerful vehicle for transmitting marketing messages.
By this, I mean that offering prospects valuable information rather than just a blatant sales pitch allows you a foot in the door to getting the eventual sale.
Even though people want to buy things to solve their problems and satisfy their desires, we also have powerful filtering mechanisms that shift attention away from messages that are “selling” to us.
To avoid this powerful barrier (like a mental email spam filter), you must lead with something enticing and valuable first.
That’s why one of the core principles of the Leading Expert Way is: “What you do before you start to sell is more important than your skill at selling.”
This is what copywriters call indirection.
Rather than a direct benefit-oriented sales approach, an indirect method is used to spark interest, build trust, establish shared identity, and prove authority before the offer is made. You may have seen this on great sales pages that address the problem in a novel way before offering the solution.
Content marketing takes the art of indirection to an entirely new level.
Rather than trying to establish trust, likeability, authority, unity, and other principles of influence with a single long sales page, you can do it over time with valuable content that solves an aspect of the prospect’s problem. And ultimately, it’s much more effective at getting your target audience to buy the rest of the solution.
Where content marketing goes wrong is when it’s all content (information) and no marketing (message). This is especially true in the realm of search engine optimization, where the desire for rankings and traffic effectively takes the true goal of conversion out of the picture to please the algorithmic Google Gods.
In other words, you get traffic to your website, but there’s no connection. And therefore, there’s no conversion into your sales process – meaning no money.
Educating your prospects with information is essential, but the marketing is in the message. And as you’ve seen, the message is the psychological connection you establish between you and the audience, not the content it’s wrapped up in.
The 4M Message Framework
We’d all like to think that the inherent “quality” of our content is what matters. However, you must also consider the more powerful aspects of medium, messenger, multitude, and merger.
Let’s take a look at each. Rather than separate phenomena, each is interrelated and ultimately aimed at achieving the fourth and final “m.”
The Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan’s famous assertion that “the medium is the message” can take you down an academic rabbit hole, but its pragmatic application simply means that the medium through which a message is transmitted effectively changes the perception of that message.
- Writers develop a “voice” that they hope resonates with the reader, even as it’s completely a construct inside the reader’s mind as they read the words to themselves.
- Now take the exact same words but transmit them by audio in the author’s actual voice, and the medium of audio and the nature of the voice influences the message’s character.
- Bring in video, and the speaker’s appearance, hand gestures, and mannerisms are now influencing the perception of the message as well.
Plus, your audience may prefer one particular medium over another, while you may have a specific strength in a particular content medium. You’ll need to take all of this into account when developing your Leading Expert strategy.
The Messenger is the Message
As you’ve seen in the last several lessons, how the audience perceives you as the messenger influences the merit of the message.
Your level of existing status and connection with the audience all contribute to the “messenger effect,” which means the exact same content can have a different impact based on who delivers it.
Likewise, your ideal prospect has to think of you as their ideal guide to the solution to their problem, and this has nothing to do with objective reality. It’s all about their perception of you based on the signals offered by the content you craft.
In other words, the relationship you forge with your audience before sending a sales message is the message. So, you create content to establish that relationship.
But it’s not your objective to be a content “creator.” Your aim is to connect at a strong emotional level with your ideal prospect, which establishes you as a leader to them in the context of the problem you solve.
The Multitude is the Message
Let’s say a “regular” person posts a message on Facebook about a recent tragic event. The post is warm, compassionate, and poignant. A bit later, former US President Barack Obama posts essentially the same message.
It naturally goes viral even as the original post is largely ignored.
At the start, this is the Messenger Effect in action. But then something else happens as Obama’s post gains momentum — the number of likes and shares becomes an aspect of the message itself due to the indications of social proof.
In short, what’s popular with certain people becomes more popular with similar people.
Likewise, those with engaged audiences get larger audiences. The foundation of social media and the interactive nature of the internet itself is powered by social proof. It’s how everything from silly memes to powerful ideas spread between like-minded people.
The Merger is the Message
Finally, we get the ultimate principle of influence – unity. This merger between the messenger and the audience transcends simple similarities and liking. It’s a shared identity through group affiliation that can determine whether you’re revered or ignored.
The merger is the message because if you’re not part of the tribe, your content, likeability, authority, and indications of social proof are easily ignored. Likewise, your status story is irrelevant if it goes against the group’s values. A segment of the population turned up their nose at Barack Obama’s hypothetical viral message because it was social proof from the wrong people (to them).
This is why the Unity Principle of influence is the most powerful of all. The other six principles are largely dependent on it to work. And while the other three Ms are vital, they’re all part of a process that leads to the ultimate goal of merging with your audience in terms of shared identity.
The Power of Charismatic Content
How do you get the “Four Ms” to kick in? It’s with something inherently linked with leadership — and that’s charisma.
At the center of every “cult of personality” is a charismatic leader. Charismatic leaders have fought for civil rights and sent men to the moon, while others have destroyed nations and committed acts of genocide and atrocity.
So, what exactly is charisma?
It’s hard to define, but you know it when you encounter it. It’s often simply attributed to particular people as if of divine origin instead of as an independent quality, but there are definite characteristics of charisma.
The word has become synonymous with charm, but in the context of leadership that’s not what we’re talking about. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Adolph Hitler are considered to be two of the most powerful charismatic leaders of the 20th century, and they were both awkward people lacking in charm and social grace who nonetheless inspired millions to follow them.
True leadership charisma is something else, and can be intentionally developed. And you can most certainly carefully create content that associates the quality of charisma with you as a Leading Expert.
Here are the core characteristics of charismatic leaders:
- They are creative
- They possess a unique point of view
- They have a willingness to express that POV
- They have attitudes that deviate from the status quo
- They communicate clearly via metaphor, analogy, and stories
- They have the unique ability to express a unifying identity and vision
It’s no coincidence that all of the above are elements of the Leading Expert Way. And expressing a unifying identity and vision as an aspect of your point of view is the best definition of “thought leadership” you’ll find.
Throughout these five lessons, you’ve been absorbing the elements of charismatic content all along. These elements will translate into enhanced connection with your chosen audience if properly executed on.
It’s time for you to lead, not just “create content” for its own sake. Go forth and conquer!