Solve Their Problems, Steal Their Attention
​Your content’s job is to work, not just perform.

The content you create, in its best form, is a tool your audience uses to get something done.

The first step is knowing what their problems are (here’s how to do that).

The second is figuring out how to solve them with the assets and resources you have:

1. Pretend you’re a startup

Your audience has jobs to do—internal conversations to prep for, reports to write, initiatives to defend, goals to hit. The best content solves those jobs.

If you’re not sure where to start, this is my favorite prompt we facilitate with clients:
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​Steal Your Own Audience: Imagine you just launched a startup. How do you steal your former brand’s audience?

• What unmet need would you race to own?
• What would you publish first?

When you picture yourself as a challenger, it becomes clear how much of your current output is built for internal stakeholders, not your audience.

2. Forget your format for a second

Everyone (and I mean everyone) falls into the “but we’ve always done it this way” trap.

Even many publishers—whose job is literally to follow audience attention—still crank out 1,000-word articles when most readers want a chart, a calculator, or a five-sentence summary.

Don’t let your current production setup define your strategy. Let the problem define the solution.

3. Solve one thing brilliantly

The best examples of high-impact content marketing don’t try to do everything. They do one job extremely well.

Consider:

• The Information’s org charts: Many professionals need to know who’s who inside major companies—but LinkedIn won’t show you who reports to whom. The Information built it and charges for access – content as strategic intelligence.
• National Journal’s presentation center: Instead of a blog, they built a service that crafts decks for policy professionals—content as executive function support.
• Northwell Health’s screening explainers: Instead of running ads, they answered the exact question keeping people from showing up: “What actually happens during a colonoscopy?” Content as anxiety relief.

One problem, solved well, can be more valuable than a month’s worth of calendar-filler content.

Focusing on problems really simplifies content marketing, produces better results, and makes you feel like you’re helping your audience instead of selling to them. Win-win-win.

KRYSTLE KOPACZ CEO, Revmade krystle@revmade.com

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P.S.: I'm excited to be speaking at the RevUp Summit in November—let me know if you're planning to attend!