Search engines, email service providers, and social networks are the bouncers of the Internet. They stand between you and their platforms (SERPs, the inbox, and ad placements). If you play by their rules, they’ll let you in and give you access to their users. The key is aligning your objectives with their objectives – the overriding objective being a positive user experience. Content marketing helps you make this alignment and gets the big boys on your team.
Hate long line ups at the club? We all do — especially when we finally get to the front only to be denied by some gargantuan bouncer in a black tee and head set.
He probably tells you your name isn’t on the list, or you’re too drunk to get in, or the guy to girl ratio of your party is not satisfactory.
Of course, you can bypass most of these obstacles by greasing the bouncer with a cool fifty or hundred dollar bill.
Why doesn’t he just let you in? He doesn’t, because he is a gatekeeper with a specific set of criteria determining who he lets into the club.
Search Engines, Email Service Providers, and Social Networks are the “Bouncers” of the Internet
On the Internet, marketers have a different kind of bouncer to deal with, but the principles are the same. On the Internet, bouncers are called gatekeepers (think Google, Bing, Facebook, and Yahoo! Mail) and they do their best to keep certain websites and messages out of their respective night clubs (search engine results pages (SERPs), email inboxes, and advertising placements).
If you get passed the gatekeepers, you get access to their users. You can ask those users to visit your site, sign up for your newsletter, or even buy something from your store!
If the gatekeepers don’t like you, you’re out of luck. They’ll bury you in the search results, block your email, or punish your quality score.
So how do we get passed the gatekeepers? How do we get access to all those potential customers? It starts by understanding the gatekeepers’ criteria for entry.
Understanding the Entry Criteria of Internet Gatekeepers
The bouncer’s criteria were mostly based on how “cool” you are. He’s ensuring that your presence provides other cool people in the club with a great experience that night.
The objective for Google or Yahoo! Mail, for example, is similar. They check your website or your email message to ensure it will provide their users with a great experience. If they don’t like what they see, they penalize your search rankings or junk your email message.
They do this because if their users have a great experience, those users will be happy and they will keep using their services.
I can’t stress how important it is for Internet marketers to understand that last point, listed below again for emphasis:
They do this because if their users have a great experience, those users will be happy and they will keep using their services.
Once you get this, you will understand the objectives of Internet gatekeepers, allowing you to align your marketing campaign with such objectives.
If the objective of your marketing campaign matches the objectives of Internet gatekeepers, you will meet less resistance from them, giving you a greater chance of success.
Content Marketing Aligns Your Objectives with the Objectives of Internet Gatekeepers
To harness the same mentality as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! Mail, you need to transform the way you think about your marketing objectives.
Your overall objective is to get traffic, leads, and sales. However, if you think only of these lag indicators, your marketing campaign becomes selfish, and selfish campaigns get squashed by Internet gatekeepers.
Selfish campaigns provide value only to the marketer. Unselfish campaigns provide value to users which, in turn, provide value to Internet gatekeepers.
By consistently providing outstanding, relevant content to your audience, you give users value and, simultaneously, align your objectives with the objectives of the gatekeepers.
You could say that relevant content (value) is the currency that Internet gatekeepers deal with. If you give some of it to their users, they’ll open up the gates.
More on Aligning Objectives: What exactly do Gatekeepers Want?
Let’s look at some actual language from a few of the major Internet gatekeepers to see what they really want:
To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
– Google’s mission statement.
Websites whose main purpose is to provide useful, unique, and relevant content that’s focused on users, with ads as a secondary purpose
– Google’s definition of an acceptable website.
At Facebook, we believe that ads should contribute to and be consistent with the overall user experience. The best ads are those that are tailored to individuals based on how they and their friends interact and affiliate with the brands, artists, and businesses they care about.
– Facebook’s advertising philosophy.
The mission of Yahoo! Mail is to deliver messages that users want to receive, and filter out messages they don’t want.
– Yahoo! Mail’s filtering objectives.
All of these high level objectives for each gatekeeper point to protecting or enhancing the user’s experience. What they are really saying is that users don’t like being bombarded with ads – they like seeing fresh, relevant content.
Deliver Fresh, Relevant Content and Make Your Marketing Life Easier
The moral of the story is that you need to play by the gatekeeper’s rules if you want access (wherever that may be). Gatekeepers, like bouncers, have good reasons for not letting certain people in. They are protecting the experience of their users.
Subscribe to the content marketing philosophy and start publishing content that your audience will love! Not only will it please your potential customers, it will delight Google, Facebook, Bing, Yahoo! and the rest of the gatekeepers, making your marketing life easier.
Because you are helping gatekeepers with their objective to enhance user experience, they will gladly reward you by listing your website on page 1, delivering your mail to the inbox, or discounting your cost per click.
Take some time to analyze your marketing campaigns. Ask yourself, are they providing value to your audience? If they are, can you provide more value? Remember, to the gatekeepers, value equals fresh, relevant content. So, get on the VIP list by publishing high quality content consistently.
