WHAT DOES CONTENT MARKETING DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS
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What Does Content Marketing Do For Your Business
I know if you’re in business, you’ve heard of the word marketing, heck, you’ve even used the word in your business, right? And if you’re in business, then you know you absolutely need Marketing so you can promote and sell.
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But have you ever stopped to think about What IS Marketing? And what does marketing do? What is it suppose to do for your business?
Content Marketing when done right, creates demand, demand for your product, for your service for your course, for your program or whatever it is that you’re selling. Which makes selling so much easier because if you do it right, that content marketing you create creates a ‘pre-seeding’ so all along, the content you create, that you share, that you promote begins to create a demand for your thing, your product, your service, your program, in other words, it creates a buzz around the thing you’ll ultimately promote and sell!.
In today’s episode, I’m sharing the 3 KEY Ingredients your CONTENT Marketing must have in order for you to begin selling, way before you ever make an offer and do so in an authentic way..
This topic is top of mind for me because I’m currently working on creating a course to offer later this year. Part of the creation process for me is to work backward by starting with the end in mind. And so, as I begin to think about and validate the idea I have for a course or program to create, I also have to consider, when I’ll be rolling that program live and then work backward with the type of content I need to create to lead my audience on a journey.
This pre-planning that I’m doing, is part of what content marketing is all about. You need to think about what it is that you’ll want to promote and ultimately sell in order to create the type of content that will peek interest, generate a buzz, showcase your expertise and keep you top of mind.
That’s what we’ll be talking about in today’s episode.
START WITH THE END IN MIND
If you don’t think about what it is that you’re going to be selling (first), before you create your content, then you’ll do your audience and yourself a disservice because you’ll create confusion.
That’s why I say that you need to back engineer or work backward from the end goal to create your content marketing strategy.
You need to be laser-focused on what it is that you’ll be promoting and selling in order to come up with the type of content you create that will help you to do that preseeding we spoke about earlier.
When you create content based on topics that are directly related to your ultimate offer, then what you’re doing with this content, is selling all along when sharing your content. By the time you start to actually promote your offer to sell, it becomes so much easier because you’ve been laying a foundation of content related to the offer you’ll be making…this is how your content marketing becomes a strategic sales machine for your products and services.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:
3 key elements I believe your content marketing must have in order for you to begin selling, way before you ever make an offer and do so in an authentic way..
FIRST: YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP LIKE THE EXPERT YOU ARE
Here’s the thing, you have to show up like an expert without saying “I’m an expert”
“Trust me, I’m an expert”
Will you actually purchase something from me simply because I say, “Hey, I’m an authority in this topic, I need you to buy my offer, DON’T YOU know who I am?” “Do you know what I’ve done?”, “I’m an expert, here’s my resume”, Here’s my LinkedIn profile, go check me out, learn how awesome I am”
Is that going to make you buy anything from me, just by me telling you that I’m an expert?
I wouldn’t! I know myself and I’d still wouldn’t buy anything from me by just hearing this…
The trick is, that you have to show up like the expert that you are by sharing examples. Let me explain what I mean.
Let’s say you’re on stage, or doing a FB Live and you spend a few moments introducing yourself and it can sound something like this:
“Hi there, I’m Veronica Sagastume and I spent 20 years in Corporate America helping start up companies in the Silicon Valley go from inception through IPO’s, Mergers & Acquisitions,
Do you see what I did there?
I didn’t give you my entire work history or resume, I just mentioned a snapshot, enough so to give you a little glimpse into my expertise and professional background.
Another way I could show I’m an expert is by talking about a recent experience that would give my audience an insight into my expertise.
For example, I could say something like
“I was just at the Marketing Impact Academy and spoke to a group of 1K entrepreneurs where I taught them 5 simple steps to go Live on facebook with confidence & ease”.
What I’m doing here is sharing my expertise with my audience, with my followers without ever having to say “I’m an expert”.
This is what I want you to be thinking about when you’re creating your content as part of your content marketing strategy. How do you share your expertise…even if it’s borrowed.
You know that old saying ‘guilty by association? Well, my statement of borrowed expertise looks or sounds something like this…
This is just an example ok. Let’s say I was doing a presentation, even if it was an online webinar or live workshop, and I said, “during my internship at the Harpo Studios at the Oprah show, I learned how to influence people with the telling of stories’
This is yet another way for you to borrow someone else’s credibility as in this example, the moment I say that I worked for the Oprah Winfrey Harpo studios, her established reputation and profile gave me instant credibility and validated by expertise…are you starting to see that?
I know that Amy Porterfield use to work for Tony Robbins. The reason I know this is because she’s often mentioned what it was like to work with him, how she messed up one of his webinars, or the people she met during her time with his company and how they helped her in her own online business…that is what I mean when I say borrowed experience…
Talk about where you worked, what you experienced, what did you go through,what did you learn, who did you learn it from and all those examples will help to validate and showcase your expertise.
Ok so these are a few examples of what I mean when I say to showcase your expertise or to show up as an expert when creating and sharing your content marketing.
Saying ‘I’m an expert doesn’t build trust with your audience. Showing it, referencing it, working it into your message does.
LET’S MOVE ON TO THE SECOND ELEMENT I BELIEVE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING SHOULD HAVE.
Adding Value, more specifically, add value that generates results for your audience. Create content that creates demand for your products or services. Or create content that gets rid of objections by addressing them with your message and providing them with a solution.
Here are some of my favorite types of valuable content I recommend you focus on creating (and remember, all of this content must be relevant to the end goal of your offer…that means that the topics you create content around must all be related and lead your audience through the journey that will end at your offer….
My favorite type of value add content come in the form of:
Best Practices
Quick Tips
Easy How To Step by Step
Before & after stories
Helpful resources
And these can be repurposed in a written post, a pre-recorded video, a FB Live event, a blog post, a Youtube video, a Podcast episode, an email to your list and more.
Your main focus and intention is to be of service, to provide value that will give your reader, your viewer, your audience a quick win, a result that will further establish your expertise and start giving you a loyal following.
More marketing, less selling…it’s in this format and in this way that you’re building trust while being of service and focusing on sharing your message.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Let’s say You’re a FB Live expert and you’ll be selling a 4 week program that will take the camera shy Entrepreneur to a FB LIVE super star that will show up with confidence, purpose and strategy.
Your end goal is to promote and sell this 4 week program. Working backwards from this point means you’ll create content marketing that would lead your audience through a journey of small bite size type of content that relates to this program you’ll want to sell.
The content marketing you share in the format I listed a few moments ago could be related to:
Starting equipment to go LIVE
A quick 5 step recipe to use during your live stream
Ways to get people to attend your FB Lives
How to be a location scout in your own home
3 types of lighting that will highlight YOU without breaking the bank
The breathing exercises I do before I hit the Go LIVE button
Debunking the 3 most popular excuses keeping you from going LIVE
4 Ways FB Lives can grow your email list
You could take EACH one of these subtopics and create a quick written post, do a pre-recorded video, do a FB Live with it, and ultimately repurpose the content at different times. By covering the themed message, you’ll showcase your expertise on the topic and provide loads of value without asking for the sale….yet!.
But do you see, by starting with the what it is that I’m going to be selling first, coming up with the related content was much easier to stay focused. By creating and sharing this type of themed content, you create the type of marketing content that lays down a strong foundation so that when you announce you’ve got a 4 week program to take them to the next level…it becomes so much easier to be able to promote and sell your offer.
I hope you’re starting to see the power behind a thoughtful and strategic content marketing strategy.
THIS BRINGS US TO THE THIRD ELEMENT I BELIEVE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING SHOULD HAVE
Do YOU like hearing a good story? Your audience wants to get to know you, the human behind the business. Stories are one of the best ways to make yourself relatable.
This is something I struggled with for a long time because of my corporate background. I had a hard time getting rid of the corporate speak and even harder was opening up and sharing personal things about my life. My content was solid, but it was missing a very important factor, it was missing ME, my personality and the aspects of my life that would make me more relatable to my audience.
But I quickly realized how important it was for my audience to be able to see themselves or put themselves in the situation I was describing and let’s face it, if we’re going to be consuming content, we might as well be somewhat entertained even with a quick story right?
Well, the good news is that there are different types of stories we can share, we don’t always have to make it about ourselves. Being quite reserved myself, I started by sharing stories about past clients, it was much easier to put a spot light on one of my past clients and telling their story for my audience to recognize themselves in.
Before I keep going, I want to share a tip with you. Whenever you’re writing or showcasing one of your clients, be sure to highlight the word YOU, even if you’re asking a question, or making a statement, or sharing a point of view…using the word YOU makes it much more impactful for your audience to feel you are speaking directly to he or she…ONE person.
For example, you could ask:
Are YOU frustrated with your marketing efforts?
Are YOU tired of feeling overwhelmed with how much content you need to create?
Or make a statement:
“I’m going to share 3 elements your content marketing must have, so that YOU can start selling with ease”
Ok, let’s keep going, I had a little detour there.
Other types of stories you should think about are:
Past students?
Friends, or family members
The earlier version of Yourself
A colleague and
Your ICA
Remember that valuable content I asked you to create in the form of
Best Practices
Quick Tips
Easy How To Step by Step
Before & after stories
Helpful resources
Well, with each piece of content you create, apply a story in it that will help to highlight the lesson, the tip, the transformation. The story can be short & sweet, a few sentences only but by sharing a quick story, your audience will start to feel like they’re getting to know you better, and you know what comes with that…TRUST!.
One tip I have for you when creating this type of themed content is to create a google sheet or excel spreadsheet and label the columns with
At the top of your google sheet: type the name of your promotion and then create your spreadsheet by labeling the following columns:
Subtheme category: Starting equipment to go LIVE
Idea for value content to create: share links to tripod and mic
Type of content: resource
Story: place-holder story you could share (this is what you started with and used for the first year in business)
Method of content delivery: Written Post
Repurpose: quick FB live, email my list with short story and linkes, blog post with links
Ok, there you have it. The 3 elements I believe your content marketing must have to help you start selling way before you even promote your offer…are
Show up like an expert you are in your communication and messaging
Create valuable content that generate quick wins, get results
Add stories to your content to build trust
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN…
I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, I’d love to hear from you. Head on over to the comments section below and let me know what type of valuable content will you create?
If you’ve enjoyed my content, could I ask you to take 30 seconds and leave a review? Your reviews help the podcast get found by others and helps me to know you’re enjoying and getting value out of the content I share.
If you head on over to Itunes, scroll down the episode and you’ll see the stars you can click on to rate the podcast and leave a review…I read every single one.
And remember, taking imperfect action is always better than waiting until everything is perfect and never starting at all.
I thank you for showing up for me, for yourself, and for your business. Until next time, I’m Veronica Bye for now
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