Zach Hammer: [00:00:00] Welcome back. And this episode, we’re going to be diving into content strategies, otherwise known as the eight Es. The whole purpose of this is for you to know how to do content marketing in a way that clearly and effectively builds no like trust, building influence with your audience over time, with your list, with wherever you’re putting out content, so that they ultimately come to want to buy from you, become your client, work with you, etc, and how do you do that strategically. Cause not all content is created equally, so you want to do this in a way that actually makes sense. So that’s what we’re diving into.

Charlie, welcome back to the show. What do you think about this topic?

Charlie Madison: I think, everything going on in the world, marketing-wise with AI, to me, this is the exponential factor. This is the ultimate leverage. Because at the end of the day, the reason people buy is either you’re the cheapest and easiest, or they really like you and trust you.

And I want them to hire me cause they like me and trust [00:01:00] me, not because I’m the cheapest.

Zach Hammer: And quite honestly, even if you’re the cheapest, they still ultimately need to feel like, I’m going to get what I want for this cost. No matter where you are, it might reduce the barrier to entry of them being willing to try you out because the perceived risk is lower, but they still ultimately need to trust you.

Now, the better we are at building trust, the better we are at building that no one likes, and the more we’re able to command for sure. And the more likely we’re able to get higher amounts and have people really trust that we can help them, where they want to go and help them in the ways that we promise. We’re diving into how you could do this.

What we’re going to go through is a combination of things. My years of studying psychology, my years of studying what other people are doing in content marketing, especially, what I’ve seen working for myself, my clients, what we’ve seen working as well in terms of how this works in practice, and really trying to boil it down and say, I see what people are doing successfully.

How do I describe this? How do I give language to this so I can repeat it? So it’s not just, it’s [00:02:00] happening in front of me, but I can actually recognize the patterns. That skillset of being able to create mental models for what is going on is really useful for actually being able to replicate those mental models yourself.

It’s really useful for being able to leverage it with AI, leverage in your business, etc. And that’s what we’re applying to content marketing here. And these primary strategies are the primary buckets that your content would fit into.

Some of the principles that we’re going to be applying through here are like Cialdini’s principles of trust and psychology, consistency, reciprocity, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, those kinds of things. We’re bringing those into play in terms of how we think about this. But those aren’t by themselves, the strategy that you deploy with tactics or with your content. So we’re going to dive through, what are those strategies? And so there’s eight of them. And we’re going to try and go through, so you have a high-level understanding of what each of these are so that you can start using them and applying them in your business.

Let me go through what the eight are, and then we’ll start going through them one by one. So the eight strategies are educate, entertain, engage, [00:03:00] empathize, encourage, enlighten, endorse, and entice. So we’ll go through those each one by one, starting first with educate.

So educate is probably what a lot of people are actually typically aware of with how a lot of content marketing goes, in the B2B space, especially. It’s anywhere where we are providing, actionable, valuable tips. Honestly, what I’m doing right now is an educate style content piece, what we’re creating together here. And the reason why this works well is because it actually establishes expertise by delivering real actionable value. It builds trust and shows authority through that process by demonstrating that you’re actually competent in the thing that you were saying that you will advise somebody with. This is a Frank Kearns, convinced him that you’re going to help them, by actually helping them.

So you’re actually giving somebody something that they could take action on and go and do, to see the proof of the pudding of the eating. They see that. What you say has merit because I could see, even in the free stuff that you’re putting out with your content, that it actually is [00:04:00] helpful.

Does that make sense?

Charlie Madison: Yeah.

Zach Hammer: Go ahead.

Charlie Madison: And I think, the reason so many people do this is, it’s the 80-20 rule. If you could only do one to get people to know, like, and trust you and buy your stuff, this is the one. And as knowing what you’re talking about, and what you do with all of your AI stuff is me and you. We take this one and we use your AI tools to actually create all the others for us. That’s a little foreshadowing there, as we get into this. And if I could only pick one, that’s the one that I’m going to lean on becoming an expert on the most.

Zach Hammer: Exactly.

Educate is definitely your most powerful in any space where what you are trying to sell is I can help you. I can help you solve a problem. I can help you accomplish some sort of something that feels painful. I can help you get past that pain. Educate is going to be one of the best ones to be the most powerful on that, in terms [00:05:00] of making a clear, movable difference.

Now, as we go into these, something to note, cause I realized, I didn’t convey this at the beginning. Typically, any piece of content that you do is going to have kind of a primary bucket. The main thing that you’re doing, the bulk of the content, the bulk of the value that you’re conveying is through either educate, entertain, etc.

It’s like the primary goal. But all of these strategies may be present in elements. If you are educating, you are going to educate more effectively if you could do it in an entertaining way. So you’re going to pull in elements of these strategies across the board.

But typically, the way that I’m thinking about it is, what is my primary method of building influence through this piece of content? What’s the primary goal? And then any secondary benefits are valuable too. So keep that in mind. As we go through these, you can mix and match them a bit. It’s just, what are you doing first and foremost through the piece of content?

So our next one that we’re diving into is entertain. So entertain is pretty simply any content that you’re using to amuse or delight the audience. The whole point is getting them to smile, get them to laugh, get them to feel [00:06:00] joy. You’re doing this in order to create a positive brand association. The psychological principle going on here is we’re increasing likability, we’re creating and attaching positive emotions to you, your brand, and your outcomes. And the more that somebody likes something, the more likely that they ultimately are ready to transact with them as well.

All things being equal, if I’ve got two competing products, one that I feel neutral about, and one that I like, but I feel like both can get me the outcome, I’m probably going to go with the one that at least makes me smile. I’m gonna lean that way. And so, it’s all about stacking the balance in that direction.

Now, examples of this type of content, this is going to be, if you’re sharing memes that are relevant, but related to what you talk about. And sometimes, you might be doing content marketing where you’re sharing information and jokes and things that like, they have nothing to do with what you’re actually solving, but they help somebody to like you and feel entertained by you as a person, making them more likely to do business with you.

So [00:07:00] ideally to me, I really like it when I can entertain somebody in a specific flow that fits with what I’m actually trying to win them too. But shoot, if I can entertain somebody period, it’s going to be helpful. Does that make sense? Do you like that mix?

Charlie Madison: Yeah. My hope for me is, I hope they’re entertained as I educate them. For me, that’s what I try to do. Usually, people that do business with me, they enjoy the way that I teach and the way that I do other things. Some people are probably naturally more entertaining by it, grabbing content and finding memes.

I’ve got 4 kids at home and like to travel and do jiu-jitsu and got to work. I don’t go out and do much of that. I try to mix this in with all the other stuff that I do. I don’t want my stuff to be dry and boring. Try to just have fun with it.

Zach Hammer: Yeah. And I think that’s the key for most people. That’s the easiest one to wrap your head around. Because there’s a logical flow of saying, here’s the message that I need to convey. How can I convey it in an [00:08:00] entertaining way? It really is somewhat of a separate skill set to very specifically say, Hey, I’m looking to entertain.

But some things that do this really well. I wouldn’t say that these commercials were primarily entertainment. If you had entertainment on a scale, it would have tilted really heavily on the entertainment side. Things like squatty potty, poopery, even like the way that’s something like the purple mattress commercials came out, where they’re very clearly making an offer and educating you on their product, but they’re doing it in a way that is very obviously trying to make you laugh, trying to bring you in on a joke. And so that can be a powerful way to do it.

Now, for the people that do naturally collect beams and naturally do that and have that power, that is an asset to you. Leverage that and don’t feel like it’s wasted time. If it’s something that comes naturally to you, what you’re doing there is you’re building that likability. But do note that by itself isn’t enough for people to want to transact with you. So you still need to figure out the ways to build in some of these things that build authority, then build influence on top of that. But note that it’s not [00:09:00] wasted time. Just can’t be the only thing that you’re doing.

Going into the next one. Let’s talk about engage. So this one actually is pretty simple.

Tactically, this is any time that you were looking to directly encourage interaction. This is when you’re asking questions, asking people to comment, and doing things like running polls or surveys that people could participate in publicly. And the whole point of it, there’s a really technical.

The tactic of this, which is when people engage with your content, on most of these platforms, it makes it more likely to be seen by other people. Because all of these platforms want posts that are getting interaction, keeping people on the platform. So there’s that where, if I get you to comment on this, it’s more likely to be seen by the next person, regardless of whether they comment. So it’s like getting free visibility.

But there is another element of this that just helps psychologically as well, where we’re getting that interaction also helps. It shows that you have influence, which people see as like a social indicator that maybe you should have influence with them too, other people in the tribe trust you, so maybe they should trust you as well. Other people are [00:10:00] interacting with your content. Maybe this is valuable content. I should be interacting with them as well. It’s an easy way to fairly naturally build out that social proof that we respond to and that we engage with as well. But that’s the idea there. I don’t think we need to dive into that one too much. It’s really just anything that the point of it is to get interaction. So let’s go ahead and move on to the next one.

So the next one, I think this is a really powerful one. And it’s one of the ones that I think people miss. So we’ve gone through some of the most common. Now, we’re going into the ones that we start getting a little bit more high-level strategy here that people may not think to leverage but really can be powerful if you do. So this one’s empathize.

Now, empathize is all about putting out content that shows, I understand your pain. I understand where you’re coming from. I’m like you. Or I’ve been there too, where it’s all about speaking to those aspects of somebody’s journey where you know it’s hard, and either you’re encouraging them in the process. Actually, that’s our next one, by the way. But we’re either encouraging them in the [00:11:00] process or we’re at least showing that we’re locking arms with them in the fight. Like we’ve been there too. We understand.

That principle of being able to have somebody actually understand you and understand the pain that you’re going through and understand where you are. The level of power that creates for actually them thinking that like your product or service can help them is so powerful.

Does that one make sense to you?

Charlie Madison: Yeah, at the end of the day, if you can explain what your customer is thinking and feeling if you can put words to it better than they can, they trust you.

Zach Hammer: Yeah, absolutely. And any way that you can show that you understand them, you understand what’s going on with them, and this is really powerful too, understanding that you’re like them can be helpful, as well. Cause then, they feel like, ah, we’re the same. If you’re able to do it, I’m able to do it. Or if you’re able to help somebody like me, you can help me as well. Because you understand me. That one’s powerful. And it’s related to the next one.

So the next one is encouraged. And encouraged is a little bit [00:12:00] different, like the point of it just isn’t to get down and understand their pain. The point of them is to inspire them and call them to something higher. The point of them is to provide a vision, to set an idea of what they could be doing, and saying, you can do it. I believe in you. This is all about being their cheerleader, all about rooting for somebody.

Man, I don’t know about you, but the reality is, in this world, it seems to actually be fairly rare that people are doing this. That people are saying, you can do it. People are saying, I believe in you. People are saying, you did a good job. I think, people fairly rarely feel seen that way. And anytime, you can be part of the process of making them feel that way, it stands out like light in the darkness. Does that ring true for you?

Charlie Madison: 100%. I think this is probably one of my superpowers, especially through the kids. It’s really taught me how to just, no matter what, just encourage them. And if you can learn how to do this, your people will love [00:13:00] you.

One of my favorite sayings is, you get people to show up and then you build them. I’ve got four kids right now. Life can be tough. And to be around someone that says, Hey, you can do it. Hey, you’re doing a great job. It’s like a breath of fresh air. It’s an oasis in the desert. And if you can be that for people, you’re training them to come to you. They want that.

Zach Hammer: Yeah, absolutely. That was super powerful. And honestly, to me, it tends to take practice for people, I think, to do it well. You gotta try and get those messages out there. Cause if you do it wrong, it can come across as corny. It can not hit, it can not land. But when you practice it right, as a skillset and as a power to be able to say, Hey, you could do more. You could do better. I believe in you. It’s so powerful. And that actually brings us to the next one. So the next one is enlightened.

Now enlightened. This one’s a little bit different. This one is probably the first one where what you’re doing is, instead of just showing them something, Oh, that makes sense. Or I see that you relate to me. This one to me is really the [00:14:00] giving somebody a new perspective. Giving somebody a new way of thinking about something, providing deep perspective, deep insights, where typically people are only looking at it one way.

This kind of content is, whenever you put something out and somebody is like, Oh yeah, that’s true, I never would have thought about it that way. Anytime that you could get somebody to agree and simultaneously think, I never thought about it like that. Or yeah, that makes sense. It suddenly makes sense. And it didn’t make sense before, right? Anytime that they can give people those kinds of insights, that’s when we’re talking about enlighten. And that’s very often, we’re talking one-word sentences that people like, see that and it just rings true. Anytime that you give a statement and you say, most people do it this way, here’s the right way to do it.

Where that actually lands and that actually hits, where people see, Oh, that is pretty typical. And that is a waste of time. Your way does sound better. It does make sense.

That’s what we’re talking about here. Anything that sort of sets you apart as a leader, as somebody [00:15:00] with unique thoughts, a unique way of looking at things, those unique ways of looking at it connect. What we’re not talking about here is, that you look at things so uniquely that nobody aligns with what you’re saying, and you sound like a crazy kook, right?

That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about where, you’re that bridge to a higher way of thinking, to a different way of thinking, to a new perspective, where you take them from where they are, to where they could be. And anytime you’re able to make those connections and give somebody new insight, it’s so powerful for building influence and so powerful for making a difference that way.

Does that one make sense?

Charlie Madison: Yeah. I think for me, like some of my favorite people, this is what I love about them. For me, Dan Sullivan is a business coach. Him teaching me, focus on my superpower, and having a whole system around that. Or we both like Mike Michalowicz. And one of the great things about Mike Michalowicz is, a lot of times, he’ll say this, something that I’ve heard before, but he’s able to open it up in [00:16:00] different ways. That golden was like this.

And what I’ve seen with these is, it takes a lot of conversations with my clients on like, all right, I see the new path, but it takes a lot of work for me to be able to explain it in a way that they get it. That almost feels like the work there. I see this world, you don’t. I think Russell Brunson calls it the epiphany bridge, right?

Zach Hammer: Yeah, exactly. And in terms of the simplest way, I think, to create enlightened style content, anytime that you’re dealing with myths and misconceptions. And the more that it’s a real myth or misconception, the better it fits. You know the equivalent of like a straw man.

If I say, Oh, some people think about it this way. Maybe mostly, nobody actually thinks about it that way. And so you’re tearing down an argument that people don’t actually care about. But if it is something where, for [00:17:00] you, for instance, I know you talk about very often the concept of, you don’t want more leads, you want compliant clients.

And that to me is one of these sort of enlightened kind of conversations where we’re talking about, it’s a myth that you need more leads. Really, you probably need less leads. Let’s get rid of the leads. Leads are wasting your time. Leads are costing you money. What you want is you want more compliant clients. And you think that you get them through leads, but that’s not actually true.

And so, that’s one of those moments where it’s like, when you connect those dots and show somebody how what they thought is true, really is a malformed view of reality, those are the moments that are really powerful to move somebody toward your way of thinking, to build influence, to get them, to trust you with that next step, as well.

It’s like you start them on that journey and they’re very likely to take the rest of the path, as long as they connect on that first part. And speaking of taking people on the next path, the next one is actually one of the biggest ones that helps to do this. And that’s endorsed style content.

So endorse content is [00:18:00] all about building social proof and connection. So the obvious examples are whenever you’re leveraging testimonials, whenever you’re leveraging how you’re helping a client, showing case studies of the work that you’ve done, talking about client stories, those sorts of things, and having your clients share their own stories, as well, those styles of content of leveraging real-world examples of what you’re doing, that’s super powerful for building credibility.

But sometimes, we even miss, I would still put it in this bucket of what I call the reverse testimonial. Where I’m actually singing the praises of my clients, but it’s also an opportunity at an excuse to talk about the fact that they’re my clients, and to talk about the work that we’re doing, and to reveal to other people that I work with people, and to reveal to other people that I help people with these types of things.

This amazing style of concept where you get to make somebody else feel good, while still creating content that builds influence and helping people in the process, it’s just magical. But really, that’s the key point that we’re showing, I’m part of the tribe, other people [00:19:00] trust me, peers trust me, clients trust me, I work with clients, anything like that, that fits in this bucket.

This is one of the bedrock pieces of referrals while you sleep in terms of what moves a massive part of the needle over what you’re doing.

Charlie Madison: Yeah, that’s one of Robert Cialdini. One of his eight main things of influence, one of them is social proof. Like we are humans, we do what other people do. And so, it’s not what I say about me, but what other people say about me. So when you get an award, it’s someone else saying, you’re awesome.

You can use your Google reviews, your Yelp reviews if you’re in real estate. My clients use Yelp or Experience.com. And one of the things that I like that you do in your AI mastermind is, I’ve been able to take the Google reviews and show it and weave a story and get it, actually.

I was not playing, but it gets it into number eight, which is enticed. I can [00:20:00] take the testimonial, weave it into a story, and then have an offer there. And the more that everyone else says I’m awesome, they’re just like, if everyone’s doing it, it must be okay.

Zach Hammer: Right. Yeah, exactly. That is a great segue to the next one, which is entice. So entice, whenever we’re in business, this is the one that we most often want to do, as much as possible. We’re always working to essentially earn the opportunity to do this effectively. And we’re always working to try and figure out, how do we do this? And really, it’s any time that we are specifically and directly trying to get somebody to take action on an offer. It could be a lead magnet to generate leads. It could be going and buying a product, or signing up and booking an appointment on your calendar for something that leads into your sales funnel.

But it’s any time that you’re saying, I want somebody to take a very specific action, and that action is essentially off of this platform. I want them to go from here, somewhere else. So that’s partially how we separate engage versus [00:21:00] entice.

Engage is typically get them to engage wherever you are. Entice is take the next step, do the next thing. And it could be buying, it could be just becoming a lead, it could be booking an appointment, whatever it is. But this content, this is really easiest to understand. What’s important to understand, though, is that the reason why these eight strategies exist is because you need to be leveraging all of them. But if you’re only doing one without the other, you are likely not actually building your influence. You might be capitalizing on your influence. That’s what entice does.

Entice, people take action. This is a withdrawal. You’ve built up influence and you’ve built up authority, and now, you’re taking a piece of it and you’re leveraging it to get somebody to take action. And so if you’re only doing this, likely you are degrading your network.

But if you do this in a way where it’s mixed into a mix of all these other content strategies. And like Charlie just mentioned, maybe the content piece itself is, it’s a combination of educate, endorse, [00:22:00] entertain, and it ends with entice. Then you’re a lot more likely to have that process go successfully to have the piece itself be this culmination of a bunch of other influence-building that you’ve been doing. And also, doing it in the same piece itself. But that’s the idea, though, you’re mixing those in, and you want to mix of these strategies in your overall content plan.

Now, let’s think of that. So typically, when I’m laying out like a map of what I want to do for content, first and foremost, I’m thinking through, what do I readily feel like I can do. How can I start meeting some minimum benchmarks? Can I get a concept piece out every day? And like Charlie was pointing out, if that’s my first goal, I’m not going to get fixated on the fact that I don’t know how to readily and systematically find memes.

I’m not going to make that part of my mix, if I don’t know how to do that. If that comes easily to me, then I’m going to leverage that as part of my overall mix. But if it doesn’t, then I’m not going to be as worried about that. I’m going to be meeting my minimum thresholds, first and foremost.

And then similarly, I’m going to start looking, [00:23:00] are there ways, are there opportunities for me to I largely lean on educate? Where can I start throwing in some content that’s very specifically designed to get people to engage, so that I’m starting to build up that army of people that platforms like Facebook or X and whatnot can start to see, people are interacting with this, people are interacting with this person, maybe you should put their content in front of them more often, right? When can I do that and how can I do that strategically?

Further, when am I doing some of the work that may be harder to do, but still really impactful anytime that I can, empathizing, encouraging, enlightening? When I have those moments where I could share a powerful takeaway that maybe people are missing. When I have those ways that I could get down into the mud with people and show that I’m in the fight with them. When can I do that? And when can I leverage that?

Just being aware that those opportunities exist starts to make it become easier and easier to see the chances, see those times. That’s the overall idea here is that we’re looking, if you’re thinking through, what does my content strategy look like. I find that it [00:24:00] helps to step back and look at the mix, and say, no recipe would be good if it only had all salt or all sugar or all flour. It’s the mixture of those ingredients that ultimately creates something that we find valuable.

Charlie Madison: I really hope that my mother-in-law listens to that, so she realizes, it doesn’t need all salt. Fingers crossed, you hear this, it’ll make family dinners better. Sorry.

Zach Hammer: I love it. But yeah, and the same idea goes. Ultimately, you’ll need to dial in your recipe of what sort of content makes works well for you. I don’t know if there’s an exact right mix. Part of it’s going to depend on how good are you at doing enlightened content. How good are you at leveraging endorsed content?

Grow your skillset, get better at that over time, leverage tools that make that better. Keep learning, keep growing your expertise. So your mix might change and flow and adapt over time as you grow, as well. But leveraging some mix is definitely the journey that you want to go on.

That’s where your content is going to [00:25:00] start doing heavy lifting for you, building reach, building audience, and building influence, where people see your content and ultimately drive to action. And that’s the idea here. That’s the eight strategies. Again, those are educate, entertain, engage, empathize, encourage, enlighten, endorse, and entice. And when you mix those, you put them out, and you leverage them, you build influence and ultimately leverage your content marketing, to get people to take action in ways that you want to.

Hopefully, those are helpful for you. I know for me, the biggest thing that this is helpful for is, by being able to put words to what people are doing, it lets me start to understand, how can I do the same thing, but apply it to my brand, and apply it to my subject, and apply it to what I want to build influence in, having the words for it lets me start to see what pieces I can adapt, and how I could reflow what somebody’s doing into something that I want to do.

If that kind of thing is useful for you, pretty soon, I don’t know exactly my timeline on this, but I have been in the process of building out a library. At this point, I have [00:26:00] over 403 social content templates that are in a database, where I’ve done not only this categorization of what they’re doing strategically, so that you have templates for every part of this strategy, of being able to educate, entice, empathize, all of that in different frameworks and structures to deploy on content in your way to your market.

Database also includes short-form style posts, long-form style posts, medium style posts. Something that we haven’t talked about that we probably will be on a future episode. We have persuasion catalysts that are in the mix as well, where we’re talking about specific tactical styles that can build influence. They aren’t strategies, but they’re things that you could enter into the mix of your template, to make them go even further. We’ve got different styles of tactics where there’s common groupings for how you do this sort of content, as well. And we got all that in there.

I don’t know exactly yet, what the final product is going to look like. But if you want to be aware of what that looks like and how you can get access to that, the information around it, definitely make sure that you were [00:27:00] subscribed to ZachHammer.me, so you stay up to date and aware of what we’re doing. Maybe you reach out if any of that sounds useful or valuable to you. And you want to see how I can help you put that into action. Either in our mastermind or directly as a client, feel free to reach out at a ZachHammer.me/contact. And I’d be happy to help you out there, as well.

Charlie, any final parting words on the eight strategies?

Charlie Madison: If you’re not doing any, find one and do it, and either pick what it comes natural to you or do an educational show like me and you’re doing. Find a friend, have a conversation. And then, get on Zach’s waiting list. And when he opens this up, what he’ll do is he’ll show you how to take the one that you’re doing, use AI to create all the others.

I’m your beta test subject. That’s what I’m doing. Pretty much all that I do now is, I primarily just do this, and we create all the content from that. And it works really well.

Zach Hammer: Love it. Thanks so much. And yeah, thanks for another great [00:28:00] episode. Until next time, we’ll catch you guys on the next one.