20 best tips for building relationships through content marketing

"Integrate customer stories with your discussion of products, services, solutions, trends, etc. to
make your customers the heroes and exemplars of the best and most positive results. This is the
perfect way to illustrate that it is always all about the customer—and not about you."

–Lisa Arthur via Forbes

"If it looks written by a machine, for a machine, it won’t resonate with human readers."
–Sam Slaughter via Mashable

"Make sure it is very easy for interested readers to become more meaningfully connected to your
brand through email, phone, RSS or other means. After all the work to get someone excited about what you are doing, don't push them away by making it hard to connect."
–Daniel Newman via Huffington Post

"Building intimacy into our content marketing strategy is actually very easy… just interject a bit of your personal life. You have kids? Mention them. You like the Buffalo Bills? Describe your sorrow. You do homemade taxidermy? Weird, but I’m sure there’s some interesting stories. The point is, a little bit of personality… a little bit of behind the scenes… a little bit of who you are as a person builds
intimacy with readers and the deeper relationship the Connected Generation is looking for."
– Ryan Hanley

"Once a person is drawn to your brand, they must feel like an equal partner in the relationship. They must be able to communicate their own thoughts, opinions, and philosophies. The days of one-sided communications between brands and consumers are over. Today’s best brands are drawing more people into two-sided conversations through the content they produce and amplify online. These
conversations are what let the audience know they matter."
–Ruben Sanchez via Outbrain

"Creating and sustaining quality marketing content within your organization requires strong internal relationships; these relationships inform content requirements and customers’ needs while
providing valuable sources of content."
– Rick Allen via Content Marketing Institute

"Keep in mind that a one-way relationship isn’t really a relationship at all. It’s exploitation. In exchange for everything you do for your village, you must also conduct yourself in a businesslike way. That means setting appropriate boundaries, making it clear from the beginning that you’ll be offering
products for sale, and taking from the village as well as giving to it."
– Sonia Simone via Copyblogger

“Ours is an era of authenticity. As marketers, we must atone for the sins of our predecessors &
build brands worthy of our customers' love.”

–Rand Fishkin as quoted by Derek Gordon via MediaPost

"…increased proximity of branded content increases the probability that your brand will gain favor with your target audience. However, there is one caveat--this brand preference only applies to high quality and helpful content. Bad content in close proximity to your target audience can have the
reverse effect."
–Aaron Aders via Inc.

"…Building an audience is a slog — it’s a long, hard process, and you need to be committed
enough to stay the course for the long haul. If you love your audience, then every email and tweet
that you receive will give you a small boost of motivation to keep on going."
–Danny Iny via Copyblogger

"Your content must be valuable by educating or informing the audience on a deeper level. If you aren’t informative, or if your content is trite, redundant, or can be found easily elsewhere, your results
and viewership will suffer."
–Jason Brewer via Convince and Convert

"To treat your website visitor as a welcomed guest, position links and calls to action throughout
web page copy to help prospects navigate the site with ease and solve their desired problem."
–Nicolette Beard via Top Rank Blog

“We don’t own our audiences. They can leave at any time. We cannot force them to engage in our
content. They’ve given us a great gift… we must be sure to thank them every day with epic content marketing.”
–Jeffrey Rohrs as quoted by Joe Pulizzi via Business2Community

"Your goal is not just to reach out and help one person, but to convince that one person to share
the content successfully with at least one other person. And to convince them to do that, you need to understand and remember that they will only share something if they feel like it’s going to make
them look better or help them define who they are to other people. If you create intense emotional
experiences for your reader: fear, anger, and more importantly, humor and awe, they will feel
compelled to share that emotion because it helps them connect with other people."
–Jeff Bullas

"To create the right content marketing, you need to start with a clear understanding of your
audience. This provides you, the marketer, with a greater ability to anticipate its needs, craft more
relevant messages, and place them where the eager audience is most likely to find them — rather
than interrupting them with it when they aren’t interested in the least."
–John Lane via Content Marketing Institute

"Two-thirds of prospects and customers must hear a message three to five times before they
believe it. Almost one out of five needs to listen to your message over six times before they start
to believe it. Take this need for repetition into account when you create your editorial calendar for
your social media and content marketing. Think in terms of content reuse to maximize your content marketing effectiveness and to reiterate your brand message."
–Heidi Cohen

"…don’t forget that your analytics play an important part in the trust-building process. It’s only by
looking at your content reports—and making the necessary tweaks—that you can get a feel for
what’s working, what’s resonating with your readers, and what’s not."
–Amanda Clark via Business2Community

"Great content solves customers problems, it doesn’t push product. Customers will have a stronger relationship with your brand once they see you are honestly trying to help them tackle their
everyday challenges via a steady stream of helpful content. Do more of this and less product
promotions and offers."
–Jason Boies via SalesForce

"When we create content, we need to tell the truth at all costs. Being relentlessly honest demonstrates integrity. Creating spin may be what we see others doing, but if we want to build trust, we must never give in to the temptation to modify or distort the facts."
– Kathryn Gillett via MarketingProfs

"If you’re building relationships by providing valuable content, the best way to do it is to keep it
slow and steady. Show up. Day in, day out."
– Sonia Simone via Copyblogger