Welcome back everyone. Before we jump into the next A of Content Marketing, let's review what we've learned.

• We've gotten our readers' attention, say with a gripping headline or image.

• We've developed an authentic connection with them, delivering what they need specifically

• We've put ourselves in their minds to understand how we can most effectively serve them helpful and interesting content.

• What now?

Now is the fun part. Here's where we zoom out and start thinking bigger:

Authority

Here’s where we peer into the long-term. Here’s where you establish yourself as a voice and differentiate yourself from the crowd.

Here’s where you make a career.

How do you do it? Well, it’s simple. You do it.

And do it again. And again. And another time.

You build authority by being there, day in and day out - for your audience, for yourself.

1. Come up with more ways to help your audience. Write them down and publish them. Engage in some experiments. Do things for yourself.

2. Choose how you want to specialize here. Some will make videos and come to build a career off that. Some will do lots of experiments on themselves, diving head first into problems and coming up solutions using their own hands and brains. Conversely, some will stay in the background. They'll use their excellent research skills to build a career providing tons of useful information for their audience, without actually experimenting personally. Choose whatever works for you - depending on your skills, your talents, your predilections. Oh, and depending on how much time you have - especially if you’re doing it on the side of a full-time job. You can get creative with it. Establish authority in a way that works for you. Consider the things you love and write about those.

3. Consider skill stacking. List all the things you're good at - at least slightly above average. Surely there are a few. Combine them and offer them up for your audience. To grab a random bunch, say it's tech, music theory, and food carts. Sure, there are people much better equipped to dispense tech advice, and there are well-established places to go to learn about music theory, and there are people who devote their every waking moment to the food cart industry. But is there someone who can combine them the way you can? Those are niche markets, catered to the most hardcore devotees of their respective fields. Small groups to be sure. There are tons of people are kind of into all three, who won't believe their good fortune that you exist. If you can prove yourself to them, there's a much better chance they'll become advocates of yours.

Skill stacking is great for how it rewards diversity in interests. Above are just some silly examples to illustrate how the concept works. And it works no matter how seemingly incompatible your interests are. In fact, it might even be better this way. "Incompatible,” in this area, is synonymous with “unique / different / unexpected”. You can attract a bigger market by combining skills in a way others can’t.

There's no shortcut to establishing authority; that's the beauty of it. You've got to put up or shut up. Be there day in and day out. That's where discipline comes in, which we'll surely be covering more in these pages in the future.

Coming Up: You've captured my attention, we've bonded, and I've come to rely on you. Now what?