The pumpkin: A bulbous, awkward, vibrant vegetable that runs amok two months a year, then retreats to oblivion for the other ten.

Odds are you got at least one out of habit - to carve, adorn, or use ornamentally - but have you made the most of your gourd’s assets?

Thinking of my yet-carved mound of orange flesh plopped upon my woodstove, I was struck by how similar pumpkins are to our existing content, which is our single most valuable business asset.

If you’re staring at your 17-lb veggie - or the fruits of your own labor from the last couple of years - and you don’t know what the heck to do with it, take a few tips from these innovative pumpkin creations and the maestros who loved them.

1. Turn your content on its side and dress it up for a fresh perspective. Did it shock you the first time you saw someone use the stem as the nose? It shocked me. Seemed so obvious, somehow, but there it was. Same holds true for content.

Consider hiring someone to turn your marketing message into a Flash animation, animated GIF, or creative image you can use on your site or in your marketing materials. Beef up a tip sheet with a few stories, charts, and examples and it morphs into a special report. Take your 50-page idea book, pluck out the most important highlights, and fit them on one page to see what’s born. You can say the same thing lots of different ways - especially if you experiment with new mediums. Your audience will dig the variety.

2. Serve up your vision of what’s possible, not what everyone else is doing. This is a tough one, because many business and marketing experts swear by a few unswerving tenets. Don’t reinvent wheels, don’t bring products to market that haven’t demonstrated a demand, and use step-by-step formulas as often as possible.

But with content, it’s up to you to decide what you can do, and how far you’re willing to go. In this insta-publish environment, creativity, boldness, and originality rules the roost. If you want to put out a set of video mini-lessons on You Tube, do it! It’s your business, your brand. Break a few rules and let your imagination run wild!

3. Let ‘em see your innards. Who says the inner workings of your daily grind can’t become part of the overall masterpiece?

People are searching, wondering about your business or industry, how you’ve set it up, what you do, and how you make money doing it. Why are you hiding this information from them? Let them get to know you! Start a blog, an audio journal, or a newsletter. Weave a personal anecdote or family photo into your next business presentation. Frame your kids’ latest school project and display it in your brick-n-mortar. Adding an honest dose of YOU keeps you from being cookie-cutter forgettable, no matter what you’re doing for your paycheck.

4. Flash your strengths and join forces with other like-minded allies. Do you own a coffee shop? Invite a local artist to put on a workshop for VIP patrons. Are you a CFO of a Fortune 500 company? Have someone record an interview series about best financial strategies and Fortune-500 thinking, and make it available to small business owners. Are you a career coach? Offer an afterschool class to graduating seniors - then invite your local newspaper to cover the event. Or, write a press release about it yourself and post it on your site, send it to clients and prospects, include it in your newsletter…

You and your content - what you know, what you’ve done, what you’ve already put out there, and what you can do for others - is just waiting to be discovered by your next favorite person.

Get it out there, quickly and often, and opportunities will abound. You’ll have your pick of the patch, so to speak.

Happy Halloween!

Posted in All About Content |

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 4:59 pm and is filed under All About Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.