Creating & Distributing Phenomenal Content — Part 1: Why it Matters

We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king,” but in a world with royalty hanging out on every street corner, that’s just not enough. The reality is more like “unique content is emperor.” It’s a crowded marketplace of ideas and brands, and people only have so much time available to explore what’s out there. So it pays to be cranking out content that people really want.

It’s been said that the real estate universe is populated by three kinds of business people: those who are not creating any content at all, those who are simply repurposing existing content from scripts and templates provided by leading coaches, and the few who are actually developing new, original, and engaging content. Such material adds value to the conversation and builds the kind of credibility and reputation that results in a growing business.

What is Content, Anyway?

Content — as in, content marketing — is basically any free information created for the purpose of initiating and developing relationships with your potential or existing customers. It can come in the form of blogs, social media posts, long-form articles, emails, videos, or even eBooks like this one.

Why should a real estate professional like you care about content in the first place? Because content marketing is essential to getting ahead in a crowded marketplace. And it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your brand.

So why is some content amazing, while other content just sits there using up pixels? It’s all about originality. Reruns are for 70s sitcoms. New content, or content that conveys established ideas in brand new ways, is the best way to gain positive attention in a crowded market space. “Web marketing is primarily powered by content,” says Neil Patel, top influencer and New York Times bestselling author. According to Demand Metric, 80% of consumers enjoy custom content and are influenced by it. It also costs 62% less than traditional marketing, while generating about three times as many leads. You can’t ignore numbers like that, and you can’t expect to truly influence that large segment of consumers with content that’s not unique.

Make no mistake, utilizing existing scripts and templates from top thought leaders and coaches is smart: it saves a ton of time and effort when you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Not everyone has the resources to create powerful content from scratch, and coaches use tried-and-true methods of engaging leads so that you don’t have to go through the trouble of proving what works. But in a landscape saturated with marketing communications, your audience is becoming more and more savvy. They can spot material that’s been repurposed with a thin veneer of branding tweaks and pumped out onto the web with little thought.

If you weren’t already convinced of the high value of quality marketing content, check out this Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics from HubSpot. It’s chock-full of pretty astounding data regarding the current state of content!

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Want to learn more? Get all this and much more in our FREE eBook, Creating & Distributing Phenomenal Content, available here.