Companies drastically underestimate the power of content to drive business. This power goes way beyond just content marketing, and includes strategy as well as social media, sem, seo, and all manner of messaging and communications.

1. How Content
Creates Massive
Potential
Your Business
@ken_carroll. ken-carroll.com 1

2. There are some enormous but often
hidden advantages to be had for your
business if you use content the right way.
2

3. If you don't know what those
advantages are, then read on...
3

4. First off, content is the new advertising,
the new PR, the new market research,
the new messaging and communications.
4

5. But better...
5

6. Articles, blog posts, videos, visuals
- you name it.
Good content creates awareness,
interest, desire, connection, relationships.
6

7. It generates leads, sales,
repeat customers, and more.
7

8. It enables, not just new and improved
marketing activities...
It creates whole new strategic
possibilities.
8

9. Except better.
9

10. Content builds on traditional marketing:
It soups up branding, positioning,
differentiation
- all of that.
10

11. But it also adds a slew of new possibilities:
Audiences, communities, “tribes”.
Good content is relationship-marketing
gone wild.
11

12. and it can make your business
massively more competitive.
12

13. Consider visibility - getting seen,
discovered.
Content gets you into the conversation, into
view. On social, and in search.
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14. It gives you a presence, a voice, a kind of
relevance and authority.
14

15. Which allows you to shape the narrative
- to shape the future of your
competitive landscape, even.
15

16. The right content with the right strategy
creates:
Inbound traffic, incoming links,
seo ranking, PR, influence,
leverage for the business…
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17. The right approach to content can allow you
to disrupt existing markets,
enter new ones.
17

18. The list goes on.
But wait - a question:
18

19. How Exactly Does It Do All That?
What makes content so potent? 19

20. Well, content - and only content -
is the way to exploit the tools,
the technologies,
the platforms.
20

21. Content is the way to max out on those
tools because content is …
why they were created
in the first place.
21

22. Content is why Google exists.
Content is why WordPress exists.
Content is why Facebook exists, too
22

23. Actually content is why all
search, all social, and all
content marketing exists.
23

24. So, please take note of what I’m about
to tell you...
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25. The whole darned system is
set up to drive content
- if it’s the right kind of content
25

26. The way to exploit these
communications tools to their
absolute and fullest extent
is through content - great content.
26

27. Yet most of the people who
are involved in content
these days do not
understand this point.
27

28. Very few know how to
use content to exploit the
full potential of the tools
and the technology…
28

29. So, here’s how
it works:
29

30. Content is how you’re going to
get everything
to
move in your favor
30

31. It’s the most astonishing thing in my 25
years of experience with content:
If you get the content right, then
everything starts to move with you.
31

32. Every.
Thing.
32

33. The platforms.
The channels.
The search engines.
The social sites.
And the Actual Human Beings
that populate them.
33

34. When the content is right,
the tech, the culture, the channels,
the whole dynamic of the web, starts to
work to your advantage -
rather than against you.
34

35. Your marketing takes effect.
Awareness grows.
Shares start. Traffic flows.
Followership, buzz, likes, clicks, retweets...
They all kick in.
35

36. If the content is seriously good
- and if you can develop what I call
a great content act -
then getting the response becomes
much, much easier.
36

37. That kind of mass movement happened to
me twice.
And each time I was able to build a multi-
million dollar business out of it.
37

38. But notice how it happened:
I’m talking about content that truly
exploited the potential of the
tools and the tech...
38

39. … content that truly
made things happen.
39

40. Content that had
inherent appeal
for Actual Human Beings.
40

41. So,
beware
41

42. Beware of the content that
will never get you there
42

43. Content that is just advertising in disguise
43

44. Because effective content is not
advertising.
It’s the un-advertising.
It’s the un-marketing.
44

45. Notice: Content has to be opt-in.
Millions of people do that every day.
They ask for content.
Sign-up for the stuff.
45

46. Do they opt-in for advertising?
I don't think so.
46

47. Why?
Because advertising has no value
to them in their lives.
47

48. The distinction may seem trite.
It’s not trite.
48

49. But not one-in-ten business
professionals understands this
difference.
And it’s why they fail. 49

50. Most are unaware that they’re locked
in an old advertising mentality that
they just can't shake.
You cannot shake what you do not see.
50

51. Which is to say that these people are
trying to fit their content into a
self-defeating,
tell-and-sell paradigm.
51

52. And in reality they're not
doing content at all.
They're doing advertising
by another name.
52

53. Most of the content you will see is just
advertising in disguise.
53

54. Nor can you just stuff the channels with
token content …
and expect the advantage for your business
54

55. We know this because most companies are
already using token content.
And they’re going approximately nowhere
with it.
55

56. Take note:
A mere presence on a social site doesn't mean
you're using content for
anything like its potential.
56

57. In the same way:
A mere presence on a platform in itself
will not move audiences to think or feel
or act in new ways.
57

58. So, yes...
content is the way, the mechanism, that
brings buyers and sellers together. Your
customers make no purchase of any
significance without research, without
information, without content.
58

59. But it has to be …
the right kind of content.
59

60. No token content.
No filler content.
No content for the sake of it.
60

61. Instead:
The content that creates leverage
for your business.
61

62. By leverage I mean the ability build a public
following, develop an online brand and lead
a kind of movement...
62

63. … and get people
to do stuff.
63

64. Leverage is an iron-clad requirement.
It’s non-negotiable, a must-have skill
for anyone who wants to achieve
anything online.
64

65. Getting people to do stuff is the nature of the
online challenge.
65

66. 66
Your YouTube channel, corporate website,
blog, or podcast - whatever it is you do with
content - it has to grab attention, build
following, grow the business, change
something.

67. Every organization, every individual
who faces the public must develop
this ability to build awareness,
grow traffic, influence people,
and lead activity.
67

68. It’s all about the
leverage.
68

69. So, where is all this strange leverage of
which you speak?
69

70. Well, here’s where the leverage is not:
It’s not the channels themselves.
The channels in themselves do not
create leverage.
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71. The channels facilitate movement but
they do not drive it.
The channels in themselves, and without
something else...
are worthless.
71

72. Because it’s not the channels that count.
It’s what you put into the
channels that counts.
72

73. It's the content that builds brands,
influences behavior, changes minds,
transforms total strangers.
73

74. It's the content that influences people,
moves them to act,
connects in that human way.
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75. Content is where
the leverage for
your business lies.
75

76. So much of the talk about social media
misses the point:
Because the fact is that content existed long
before any of the platforms.
And content will be there long after they fade
away.
76

77. So, if you want to get better at search engine
marketing,
at social media, at content marketing and a
lot more, then study the stuff that makes
them work - study content.
Master content.
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78. The skill of creating/managing content to
make something happen
is the ultimate skill to have now.
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79. It’s where the
leverage is...
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80. And it gives you what I call the
Content Advantage.
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