This article is about finding flow with your content marketing campaigns. The purpose of most content marketing campaigns is to generate interest and clicks, to attract and engage people in a way that they want to do business with you.
Finding your content marketing flow is really about getting what you want if you’re like most business owners, CEOs and marketing executives we’ve served over the last 13 years.
Feeling flow at work and in life is a beautiful thing. But what is flow exactly and how do you find it? And once you figure out how to get it, what does it feel like?
In short, flow is being in your zone.
Here are six psyhcological attributes of flow.
- Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
- Merging of action and awareness
- A loss of reflective self-consciousness
- A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
- A distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective experience of time is altered
- Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience
Have you ever felt this personally when you work? I do all the time. Like right now, when I write and build marketing campaigns. This is because I love to create content.
This is what it takes to get good at anything because to love doing something means you will practice as often as you can. You enjoy spending time doing what you do in your flow and therefore it seems not like work and more like a gift from the heavens.
Practice drives progress, not perfection like most people say. I don’t believe in human perfection. Too many of us lose our minds striving for it. Or we freeze in inaction because we are fear not being perfect.
No, screw perfection. Let’s focus on constant and continual improvement. In the Japanese language the word is Kaizen.
Let’s building something for marketing that get sales results.
Why is content marketing flow, team and business flow important? Because flow = customers.
Therefore, improving your content marketing flow improves your cash flow. Assuming you’re pricing your products or services appropriately, and managing your expenses, you will increase revenue and hopefully, profitability.
Unless you’re aggressively reinvesting your gains from this new found content marketing flow back into your business by hiring new talent, investing in new technology or perhaps increasing your sales force and advertising budget.
Let’s see how to find this content marketing flow for your business or organization. I always suggest following these steps.
- Ensure marketing leadership is strong. If you can’t or haven’t lead a content marketing business before because your thing is making widgets, don’t try to be your own marketing leadership. Hire the content marketing leadership that is suitable for your business; CMO, VP of Marketing, Marketing Director, Marketing Manager, etc. Each title has a different job description that fits your business size, needs and stage.
- Find your personal flow. You and everyone on your team will have found their personal flow, meaning everyone loves what they do and get lost in their work. Your and your team are each exceptional at what you do and you live in your personal flow as a team. That’s how teams win.
- Set one, primary goal. Focus on one, primary goal at a time and the related elements to achieving your goal. Then attack and follow a plan of action that is in writing and clearly explained and always shared and updated by someone on your team.
- Follow and share a road map. (Action plan.) Create a simple and easy-to-follow action plan, editorial calendar and project management system to keep everyone aligned and clear on where you are going.
- Build the best team your money can buy. Yeah, being cheap with talent can be really hazardous to your wealth. Ever lose money on a terrible marketing idea? Don’t cut corners on marketing talent.
- Align your team. If each person is truly a pro and can find their own flow then aligning these people to your marketing plan of action is a piece of cake. This also ties to #1, leadership, because any great marketing leader will know how to align your team because they will know how to create a killer plan of action tying it all together for you and your business, if this is not you.
Yes, there is much more to finding and working in flow. Start here.
If you’re not the right content marketing leader to be driving your bus, don’t crash your bus. Hire a new driver if you really love the bus you own or are driving now. (Keep your business or your job.)
Give your people the right equipment. Take great care of your everyone and the gear they need if this is on you; love and recognize your people. Remain clear on what you want, don’t change your mind every day, and pay your people well.
This is how to find your content marketing flow. You will also start seeing beautifully-mapped workflows that align with your plan, team and overall flow in business and hopefully, in life.
Then you will see the new results on your marketing campaign ROI dashboard. (Yes, it’s easier than ever to track marketing campaign ROI if you have the right systems.)
May you find your flow.
If you’d like a second opinion on your action plan, team and flow, reach out to us today.
