Empathizing with Your Target Audience's Content Overkill

Are you bombarded every day with an avalanche of content — emails from brands, newsletters from trade publications, articles galore, links a-plenty, a video smorgasbord and a plethora of commercials? It’s enough to make anybody go bananas! But, I have to admit…I love it. I eat it up…daily.

And, as marketers, we’d be crazy to ignore it. Stop being a professional and start being a consumer.

At this very moment I have roughly 60 browser tabs open across four consumption-enabling devices — Apple devices, of course — with everything from technology trends and what was unveiled at Google IO to the summer’s best new TV shows (they all sound bad) and where to get not-on-the-menu burgers in Santa Monica (they all sound awesome).

Am I showing off? Maybe. But, if you’re a marketer, it’s your professional duty to hurl yourself in front of the oncoming semi-truck of content that consumers are barraged with on a daily basis, to ensure that you know what they have to endure. On behalf of your brand, you need to know how much noisy, pointless content their target market is wading through. Only with that understanding will you know how to create brilliant brand storytelling that cuts through the mundane.

Most importantly, selfishly gorge on content for your own benefit — after all, we’ve all been consumers at some point. Learn and evolve from the content flowing into your inboxes and digital channels. Own it. The world of content, messaging and storytelling on behalf of brands will only get more complex.