Have you ever wondered what competitive food eating can teach you about your website’s content marketing strategy?
Probably not, but I’m pretty sure that now I’ve asked the question, you are dying to know the answer.
How can a person eat that many hot dogs?
It’s like a train wreck. You want to look away but you can’t. Fists flying, water splashing, saliva dripping, and one hot dog after another getting shoved into the mouth. I can barely eat two, let alone 72 (the current world record).
So, how do competitive eaters overcome their gag reflex and avoid upchucking all those hot dogs? The answer to that lies in the body’s physiology.
First, they eat as many hot dogs as possible. They will eventually hit a wall and the body says “no more.” This is because the brain recognizes the taste on their taste buds and shuts down the ability to swallow. However, if the competitive eater will grab a handful of something else (let’s say gummi bears) and eat those, the brain resets and all of a sudden they can swallow more hot dogs.
What does competitive eating have to do with my content marketing strategy?
Bear with me… there is a lesson to be learned from competitive eating.
The prevailing philosophy is that the more content you have the better. After all, Google loves content. That’s true, but you don’t just write for Google. You publish content for two audiences and Google is NOT your primary audience. The client is your main concern.
And they can only digest so much of one type of content before they need to “reset.”
So how can you get your clients to consume more of your content? Let’s go back to competitive eaters.
Break it Up
Competitive eaters will break their hot dogs in two so they don’t have to chew as much. You should do the same with your content. Break it up into subheadings and easy to digest pieces.
Leave Off the Condiments
World ranked competitive eater, Yasir Salem, says they only way he can eat all those hot dogs is to forgo the condiments. Stick to the basics and move forward. Writing good content requires the same. Don’t add extras, say exactly what you need to say, and keep it moving forward.
Mix Up the Menu
As we said earlier, the body can only take in so much of one type of food before it shuts down. When it comes to content, don’t hit your readers over the head with the same topic week after week. Vary the topics and also the type of posts. When you engage with your prospects on your website, make sure you include storytelling, images, audio, and video. Variety will actually encourage them to “overeat” and the longer you keep them on your site, the better.
How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy
In addition to variety, you need consistency. No competitive eater just sat down and decided to eat 70+ hot dogs one day. They had to eat hot dogs on a regular basis. In fact, one competitive eater confessed to eating 60 hot dogs, 3 days a week, for a month before one of his contests.
You must deliver a steady diet of content to your customers as part of your content marketing strategy.
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