CHAPTER 6

Open Up and Listen

Don't interrupt me!

How many times did you hear that as a kid? (I certainly did.) As adults we think it every time we get cut off by someone else at the end of a sentence before we have a chance finish our thought. To be a good conversationalist, you have to be a good listener. Yes, your brand has something to say, but if you're inwardly focused on the sale, and not outwardly focused on the information needs of the customer, you're not helping them.

How do you know what to write about each time you set out to write a blog, shoot a video, or record a podcast? To start, take a step back. Your audience is already engaged in a conversation with others. Of course, you have subject matter expertise that will guide your content iteration, but while they're talking, it pays to listen to your audience to gain insight into what makes them tick. In addition to what you already know, what are their pain points? Their needs? Or more specifically, what do they need from you? How can you take care of those needs right now, so they feel connected and attuned to you? What information can you provide in the moment?

Setting up a listening regimen is a critical part of the content ideation process, and essentially takes the form of three steps.

A relationship exists between you and your audience— one that needs to be cultivated through trust and understanding. Your audience is not merely a group, but a collection of individuals, each unique with varied thoughts, beliefs, passions, and ideologies. Your audience is not just a target you're trying to make money from, but individuals with whom you're trying to connect and have a conversation—between two or more individuals, not a one-sided lecture with no input from them.

If you approach every conversation from a standpoint of listening, you can gain greater understanding as well as the connection you seek with your audience. It's just like life. Think about how much more successful you would be in love and life if you became a better listener. Listening validates the other person. And validation builds trust and advocacy. When you listen more than you speak to your children, your partner, your friends, and your mentors, you gain a special advantage in virtually every conversation.

Naturally, the conversation should always begin with listening. If you're simply creating content for the sake of content, you become part of the noise that your audience is shutting out and turning off. Standing out as an individual, whether personally or professionally, requires you to listen with quiet resolve and speak at the right time to the ideal audience, with the right words, and the right tone. Knowing your audience and connecting with them is all about listening.

In their #SpeakBeautiful campaign, Dove collaborated with Twitter to change the way people talk about beauty on social media. After listening to their audience, Dove knew how to engage in what would be a successful campaign to reach their audience and make a positive change and create affinity for a traditional brand.

How to Listen Effectively

In personal communication, listening is a learned skill everyone needs to know. Likewise, in business, listening effectively is crucial to a successful content marketing strategy. If you don't know how to listen to your customers and your prospects, not only will you have difficulty reaching them, you'll have difficulty retaining them, too. Here are a few ideas.

Mine for What Your Customer Thinks

If you're stuck and need help finding your customers and what they're talking about, at some point, you'll want to quantify what's trending with the help of “listening tools” that mine for this information.

Such tools expedite this process, giving you automated ways of listening to the conversation in social media and quantify the data. These tools are commonly used by researchers and marketing and communications teams to understand what customers are saying, keep on top of the latest trends, and track what their competitors are doing. Listening tools automatically monitor consumer posts in different languages and various countries, providing a number of ways to help brands reach their audiences. You can first try using Google's free Keyword Planner and Google Trends, or go straight to something more powerful like BuzzSumo and Moz.

Social media listening tools seek out specific mentions on social media, identifying trending topics, and organizing customers' chatter and information. In addition, these tools can also spot leaders and influencers in your industry. There are a few popular tools as starting points:

• Hootsuite: Its old reputation as a convenient place to deploy your messaging across all your social media accounts shouldn't fool you. It's also a great social listening tool.
• Sprout Social: It allows you to listen to social conversations about topics as well as what consumers are saying, notifying you of all social media interactions in a single place while you monitor your competitors.
• Talkwalker: Since it gets its data from over 150 million websites and tracks conversation in about 190 languages from around the world, it deserves a seat at the table here.

When using these tools, don't forget to search for your brand name and all its variations (including alternate spellings and abbreviations), as well as your name and the names of other key team members. You'll also want to include any taglines, mottoes, messages, or slogans your brand uses along with keywords used in your industry.

When you use these tools, remember they aren't there to stroke your ego; they should be used to join conversations, interact and engage with those talking about your brand, your competition's brands, and fill gaps in your content to meet needs based on what is being discussed. Don't be sensitive if some posts are negative. Instead, listen and utilize as you would constructive criticism. Following up and interacting with negative and positive posts shows your humility and transparency, making you and your brand more human.

Go Where Your Customers Are Hanging Out

Turn your focus to where your customers are congregating. This doesn't mean going to your local coffeehouse, but rather find out where your customers are gathering online. Where are they hanging out on social media? Are they on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn?

If you're a B2B company, for example, you'll likely be trolling LinkedIn. If you're more B2C, such as a local ice cream shop or major retail chain, you're more likely to go to Facebook or Twitter to find your audience.

There are a number of great campaigns businesses have created as a result of listening to their audience and discovering “Hey, you know what? There's a whole section of our audience here or there. . . .” You might be a candy manufacturer who thought only children were eating your candy, only to discover on social media that you have an audience of nostalgic adults who loved your candy growing up. By listening, not only will you discover where to find your audience and what they want to talk about, but you'll also find out whom to talk to as well. Suddenly, you've uncovered some people interested in your products that you didn't even know existed.

By hanging out and listening, you can also find out who is doing the talking about your products or services. You also want to know if they are joining in a conversation started by someone else or if they are leading the conversations on social media. Once you know that, ask how you can make a contribution to those people. How can you help them or meet a need for them? And that's just the beginning.

Ask on Social Media

Get your customers involved by giving them some ownership in the content ideation process. Many, many, good topics have come from ideas the customers requested themselves on social channels. After all, if one customer is asking, there are probably many more who are out there seeking the same information and simply haven't taken the time to ask. Give it to them!

But beware of the caveat: You may not like what you hear. Sometimes this approach can spawn negative attacks that have nothing to do with content suggestions. Be ready to moderate the conversation and check your feeds regularly.

Survey for Customer Feedback

In truth, most successful businesses have a good idea of what their customers need, but they don't always know what their customers are talking about. Collecting customer feedback by survey is a qualitative form of listening that's less scientific than other methods, but it can be extremely effective when done correctly and inform your content marketing strategy.

Conducting a survey can be great, but before you know what the problem is, you may find the results are limited to a few responses or certain types of people who don't necessarily represent your entire audience demographic. This alone means surveys can exclude a majority of your customers right off the bat.

Another problem you could run into with surveys is there may not be a large enough response to provide anything meaningful. If you were expecting 100 respondents and only got five back, and they were who were all negative, you run the risk of assuming the worst and start globalizing what amounts to a small issue. When it comes to surveys, the best results are when enough people respond, and there's a balance of both positive and negative feedback that might prompt meaningful change.

Data + Gut = Success

Whatever protocols you choose to use to listen to your audience, one thing is for sure: You simply can't extrapolate all the information you need from data alone (quantitative) or gut feeling and experience (qualitative). You need both.

If you approach marketing from gut instinct alone, you're going to be dead wrong if you don't take into account that you might be a part of the minority. If you like a product or an idea, or you use a product in a certain way, then you'll seek out others who are in agreement. If you ignore the data and only look for evidence to validate what you're already thinking, you're not getting the whole picture. And likewise, if you're only tracking data without the guidance of your subject matter expertise, you're reading data in a vacuum where you can make a lot of mistakes and miss opportunities.

The optimal method for content topic creation is what I call “policing the data.” In other words, applying qualitative review on top of quantitative data. You can use the listening tools to pinpoint trending keywords and existing conversations in your niche, but you should apply your institutional knowledge of your industry to make final decisions for true relevancy. Just because a topic may find its way into the “trending” bucket of your search doesn't mean you should use it. The topic may be similar to what you're looking for, but not relevant to your niche. If it's not helpful for your purpose, then don't use it.

Points of View: Good Versus Bad

In general, people tend to be more outspoken when they have an unusually bad experience. When you're listening, this makes it harder to find those with good opinions, but it's possible.

In fact, all you have to do is ask. If you're listening well, people, particularly on social media, give a lot of thumbs up and thumbs down. On most social media sites, there's some sort of “Like” system that can give you a sense if your content is resonating.

People truly do, even if only in a small way, use these methods to give you a sense of their likes or dislikes. If someone likes what you're saying, they tend to share it on social media. The more your content is being shared, the more likely the audience is getting something from it, making it a positive experience and projecting a good opinion. The less your content is being shared can mean many things, among them:

1. You haven't been pushing content out long enough to have built an audience that cares enough to respond.
2. You need to revisit your distribution/channel strategy.
3. It's just not that good.

You don't want to discount any one of these reasons, but if your content isn't being shared or you get negative comments, be careful jumping to conclusions that the majority didn't like it. You may be getting negative feedback from only a limited number of your audience. No matter the numbers you're analyzing—100 shares, ten shares, or one share, doesn't matter—you have to consider how much time and effort you put into your content marketing and whether or not you have done it correctly.

Keeping Points of View Positive

You may be wondering if there is anything you can do to keep your customers' points of view positive. First of all, what point of view are you talking about? Are you discussing the point of view of your company or the point of view of your customers? What is the point you want to keep positive? Are you trying to maintain a positive point of view of yourself as an industry expert or trying to keep customers' point of view positive about your customer service?

Generally speaking, you're probably most concerned with keeping your clients' points of view positive. How do you keep your customers feeling positive about you and your brand? At first glance you may think classic customer service or possible content value or, depending on your business, your product's usefulness and longevity. But there is so much more to consider in maintaining a positive point of view from your customers in relation to your business.

• Keeping open an honest, forthright conversation.
• Being vulnerable.
• Admitting you're not perfect.
• Owning your mistakes.

Traditionally companies have been tight-lipped, never vulnerable, always presenting the perfect image, and never admitting to making a mistake. But this is changing, with the credit for the shift due in large part to millennials. Millennials are expecting to have a conversation with brands, which means more damage is done when a company fails to show their vulnerability, humility, and humanity. You cannot try to be perfect all the time to everyone because you fear a lawsuit or a tarnished reputation.

Will an MBA Help You Listen?

The answer, of course, is it depends. Each of those individuals can certainly help you with general-purpose content marketing, but think about it, you're not likely going to need an MBA to market your flower shop unless you're going to produce content about the science of growing flowers. If, on the other hand, you're in a niche market (financial, legal, medical, or engineering), then these professionals may help you listen and start a conversation with your audience.

None of this means you need an MBA. Though it's great to get as much education as you can, it will not necessarily make you better at content marketing. To be a good content marketer, you need to have natural insight into the human condition and understand how to be a good listener.

To succeed in your industry, whatever it is, you do need a certain level of expertise. But remember: Expertise does not come in a few months, or immediately following college graduation. Expertise is a product of years in an industry. And that means you need professionals on your team who have expert insight into the content you're producing and the conversations you're hoping to have with your audience.

My firm is grounded in the financial industry, and because it is, I know journalists who spend years writing about fiscal and economic issues. We hire those former journalists because it's mandatory our content writers have a solid financial background to write about investments. We don't consider those who claim to be good writers with no background in the industry. Why? Because a good writer with no financial expertise cannot produce insightful and informative content to educate our audience on investments.

How to Speak the Way Your Customer Wants to Be Spoken To

In the real world, we use our tone of voice and our body language to convey meaning. When you're listening and trying to have a meaningful conversation with someone and relate to them, you often imitate their body language. It is known as mirroring in the world of psychology, and it has proven to be a powerful tool in building rapport and understanding. Mirroring is instinctive, like smiling when the person you're talking to smiles or crossing your arms when the individual crosses their arms.

Mirroring facial expressions and body language communicates the message that you're alike—you're in agreement with the others in the conversation. This helps people feel secure in your presence as it builds trust and understanding. The synchronous behavior of mirroring creates confidence and camaraderie. It shows you're removing the mask and being real with those in the conversation.

Mirroring extends beyond facial expressions and body language into voices, tones, and accents. For example, if someone is speaking to you in a loud voice, you may speak to them in the same way, mirroring their tone. Everyone tends to take on the mannerisms of those they are communicating with. It's intuitive and instinctual. Think about how you tend to take on the tones and accents of those you're speaking to when you travel.

You also mirror voice, accents, and tone when you're trying to ingratiate yourself to another, attempting to accomplish a task or goal. If someone is speaking in a specific way, there will be a certain amount of slang in the dialogue. Younger generations will use words and colloquialisms that seem unconventional to them. In the same way, if you're speaking to an organization at the professional level, you'll encounter more formal speech, less slang, more neutral language—professional language.

To understand people, you have to be a good listener. You should always be listening for verbal cues and looking for non-verbal cues. You can gain valuable information from both, especially verbal cues. As you listen, ask these questions:

• Are they using exaggerated words?
• Are they using slang?
• Are they having a youthful conversation?
• Are they telling jokes?
• What's the predominant conversation?

Targeted marketing should happen on the platform of the user's choice—not yours. We don't target customers on Snapchat the same way we target customers through print media. Those are different user bases, and as such our conversation with them needs to have the appropriate voice.

When people are engaged in these group conversations, whether in person or responding to social media in your industry, how are they doing it? It really is all about ingratiating yourself with the audience by analyzing both the spoken word and the written word. You have to listen carefully if you want to join the conversation and communicate effectively.

You can't always see the non-verbal clues, but, when you can, pay close attention because they reveal a great deal about people. Look at how they look at you and examine their body language.

Mirroring body language, facial expressions, voice, and tone can help you build understanding and develop trust. You can establish a connection and communicate better when you mirror your audience, from body language to facial expressions to tone of voice to pace of speech. You will make them feel they like you when you reflect their mannerisms and voice, developing the rapport you seek.

What They Want Versus What They Really Want

Considerable research suggests that consumers don't actually know what they want. There are two schools of thought here. The first is the philosophy embodied by Steve Jobs, who famously said, “A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.”⁷ Jobs operated on the notion that customers truly don't know what they want, and so Apple showed them—and he did so successfully.

Same with rock and roll. Before the Beatles's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, nobody had sounded like them before. Then it was Led Zeppelin in the '70s, U2 in the '80s, and Nirvana in the '90s. All pioneers with virtually no “data” in today's conventional sense to suggest each of their unique sound would be successful. If all the bands that came after Elvis thought they should sound like Elvis because that's what the data said worked, rock and roll wouldn't have evolved. (I shudder to even think it.) The second philosophy is the camp that follows the evolving pattern to achieve success. There are a million copycat bands that do very well following the model of the current precedent in their industry. Great success can be awarded to those who can replicate the successful model of the day very, very well. So suddenly, U2 becomes the greatest sound of the day, and you hear a lot of bands that sound a little bit like U2 and gain some measure of success, until the next band comes out in five or ten years with a unique new sound. The point is, you've got people who jump on the bandwagon of whatever is trending at the moment and give the consumers what they want, and you have the unique individuals who are developing the industry in creative and distinctive ways.

Now, that doesn't really answer the question “How do you tell the difference?” but it does set the stage. In order to answer the question in your industry, try it both ways. Test the waters. Dare to be different to get noticed, but always be relevant. You can easily quantify the results. In content marketing, whatever you do to gauge what your customers want to hear and what they don't want to hear, should provide you a good sense of what is going on in the conversations and what they want to hear. If you do try something new, stick with it for a little while. Consumers might not like it at first, but that doesn't mean they won't ever like it or it's not going to take hold. You can't change an entire strategy based on one or two comments, or one or two social media posts, or any similar small response. If someone doesn't like what you said, it doesn't mean it's not going to work. You've got to give it some time to play out.

That is the big different between content marketing and traditional marketing. In traditional marketing, if you create a thirty-second commercial and you don't get the million hits you thought you would, you might have time to change your campaign and do something else. In content marketing, you've got to stick with it a little longer because you'll earn trust over time. You're not going to earn trust in thirty seconds. It's going to take a while for people to respond to your attempts at reaching out to them. They don't trust you yet. You've just entered the conversation, and you have to give them time to listen to you as you become part of the conversation, listen, and eventually earn their trust.

Icebreaker

At the beginning of this chapter, you learned to not interrupt if the audience is talking. Even if the talk is negative, listen. You can learn a great deal by listening to what they are saying, negative or positive.

Right now, take the time to do some research, listening to the talk in the industry, among your customers, and among your prospects. Once your initial research is done, answer these questions honestly as you prepare to move into Chapter 7, where you'll learn how to start a conversation with your content:

1. Listen to the conversations. What is being said?
2. What do customers and prospects need right now?
3. What are the topics they want to hear about (not the topics you want to talk about)?
4. What is being said about your brand (the good and the bad)?
5. What are the audience's pain points?
6. How can you take care of their needs right now, making them feel connected to you?