top-of-mind

If you create content primarily to stay “top-of-mind” for people, here are two questions to consider:

QUESTION 1

Are there any environmental cues related to your offering that naturally make you “top-of-mind” at the right time?

For example, I know I am going to see my dentist every six months. I have calendar events and reminders to make it “top-of-mind” only when it’s almost time for my appointment. And if I need to see my dentist outside of those appointed times, then the pain in my mouth or my self-consciousness about the stains on my teeth will prompt me to go in early.

Once I have chosen a dentist, assuming I am happy with the service, I probably don’t need to follow them for weekly posts reminding me that they exist.

So instead of creating regular low-value content designed to stay top-of-mind, my dentist can focus on creating more intermittent content that may be more highly valuable in specific dental situations.

QUESTION 2

Does the value of your content fluctuate over time?

For example, if I am struggling with my financial situation, I may decide to consume content from a financial advisor who is creating valuable content to help me shape my mindset around how I handle my money.

If I still can’t wrap my head (or behaviors) around the concepts in the advisor’s content, I’ll probably hire him or her to personally help me.

But, eventually, I will hopefully get a pretty good grasp on my situation and stabilize my immediate crisis, at which point there is diminishing returns on the value that I was getting from the advisor’s content at the beginning.

However, if I am following said advisor, continuing to receive content in my feed means I will still be spending time on the content even though I’ve significantly diminished the ROI.

On the other hand, if I found the content on a website and maybe binged through a library of helpful topics, I may forget about the advisor once my crisis is over.

And that’s okay.

Because if someone can forget you, they don’t really need your offering.

It’s those who can’t forget you, even unprompted by a social feed, who will be your best customers.

In other words, forgetting is vetting.

~ ~ ~

All that to say, if you’re spending a lot of effort on content trying to stay top-of-mind for customers who don’t immediately need your offering, you’re probably wasting their time (and your own).

But the good news is, with a little consideration, you can almost certainly redirect those content efforts to create something even more valuable.