Think like Bruce Lee and become one with your audience. How? By being zen with them. The definition of zen we are sticking with here is one of “a state of calm attentiveness in which one’s actions are guided by intuition rather than by conscious effort.” For our intents and purposes—zen means getting inside the mind of your customer. Let’s progress with this process to see how exactly you are supposed to do….that.
Improve Your Intuition
The path to zen in content strategy comes full circle with a concept called intuition. Not hokey or New Age-y, but rather a powerful tool anyone can develop, just like any muscle—through practice. Inc. covers how to use intuitive thought to make smarter business decisions. Apply the following intuitive skills according to Inc. to your content strategy
Content Cramps
Listen to your body and if you are experiencing a negative physical sensation or some aspect of your content actually makes you want to vomit with—make a cut to that content quickly. You can tell if something is not working by the way your body reacts.
Just like when you look at a well-designed shoe or sculpture in a museum and you feel at ease—the opposite happens with content that just doesn’t fit. If your content is working the way it should, your intuition will tell you. Then you will know you have achieved zen-like content that will bring the right marketing message to your audience.
Content Energy Check
A poor content strategy will leave you spending more time reworking your strategy. That’s a bad move. You want to be able to use your content strategy as a constructive blueprint for your content marketing goals in a seamless, nearly automated manner. This will leave you with energy to burn on other marketing or content goals. Consider poor content strategy as detrimental as energy vampires.
Look for thoughts of inspiration or brilliance, those grand ideas that seem to pop up out of nowhere. So often while you are standing in the shower, or by chance, if you are capable of lucid dreaming you can use that to generate ideas.
Meditate On It
Meditation, that works, too. Use meditation to get into the zone when coming up with a content strategy. Albert Einstein went for long walks as a form of moving meditation to work out his most difficult of equations. When you are stuck on a content strategy problem, go meditate on it for a while and see if you can work out the issue with the 95 percent of your brain matter that we don’t know much about.
Reaching the Zen Moment in Content Strategy
When you can use intuition to help shape your content strategy, you are able to reach a zen moment with your customers. You know fully what you are providing for them because you have evaluated your content strategy on a meta-level. This helps you find ways to improve upon your existing strategy without reinventing the wheel every time you open up your editorial calendar and spreadsheet.
Get More Intuitive With Your Content Strategy
Want to learn more about ways to be a better content strategy pro? Start here at WriterAccess with content strategy news here, here, and here.
“Welcome. I’m the Whispering Wordsmith of the Woods, An Old Man Willow type cunning the lit forest, Disrupting textbookish writers with grammar snaps and cracks.” As a professional web content writer for small-to-medium businesses, Miranda B understands how to effectively balance technical jargon and personal brand messaging. Her content is sticky, evergreen when expected to be, and always creative. Keep ’em coming back for more, that’s Miranda’s motto!
