We’ve swiftly moved from the summer of Taylor Swift and the Swifties into the fall of Taylor Swift. The Era’s Tour and now the movie have raked in billions for the artist. It may feel like Swift is a unique superstar who’s success would be hard to replicate. In reality; however, over the past several years she’s been employing the same fundamental marketing practices that every content marketer should be using to build their brand. She’s doing it exceptionally well and it’s paying off. Here are six lesson’s Taylor Swift’s success offers content marketers:

1. Create Relevant Content. Obviously Swift is tapping into something people want to hear and marketers can do the same (it just might not be something they’ll sing about in the shower). Look for connection points with your audience. What pain points do you share? When you create content that makes people feel something, feel seen or feel heard, you not only gain their preference and loyalty, but their promotion of your brand as well. Your credibility increases in the market, making your job even easier. 

2. Promote Your Content Authentically. Taylor Swift is a brand. But she’s also human and she promotes her content as if she’s one-on-one with you, her friend. Read her Instagram posts when she has a new product (album/tour/merch) to announce. It feels genuine and real. It feels like she cares what you think about it. Similarly, your brand-big or small- is not just logos, it’s the people behind it. Humanize your marketing promotion. Show you care about your customer.

3. Experiment. Swift has taken her music into all different genres. Are you known for white papers? How about creating a video? Or a webinar? Change the rules. When has it ever been ok, let alone encouraged to sing, dance and scream in a movie theater? 

4. Repurpose Your Content. Eras Tour to Eras Tour Movie. There were plenty of people that didn’t have an opportunity to go and wanted to and plenty of people who wanted to experience the content again. How can you reuse your event content? Or webinar content? Content should never be “one and done.” If it’s valuable and authentic people will consume it in multiple ways.

5. Strike While the Iron is Hot. If you’ve built buzz around a particular campaign, don’t let it get cold. Keep connecting with your audience. Swift’s movie came out before the Tour gear had even been packed away. 

6. Think About What Your Different Audiences Need. Swift’s fans span generations. Moms love her just as much as their 10-year-olds. With the Era’s Tour, she used all of her available assets to build a winning strategy that pleased all of her audiences. 

Making great content doesn’t have to be for superstars alone. I urge you to implement these lessons into your content marketing campaigns and find out if you get better results. Let me know in the comments.