Content! (Insert scream here)! Yes, content. Barring the hope that everyone on the planet will suddenly stop using their many information-providing devices, your business needs, (sigh), content. Think of your content as the engine that drives your business. It is your WHY. It helps to build your audience and nurtures them from a lead to a customer. Having a clear strategy in place leads to increased revenue, improved business processes and loyal customers. Before you accidentally get distracted about it again, stop worrying and create a content strategy! Whether it’s blogging, lead magnets, email marketing or even podcasts, a strategy will help you get it under control. Here are some key pieces to a content strategy:
- Your Content Plan. Take some time (no longer than 15-20 minutes) and create a high level content marketing plan. Include the overall mission of your business, the measurable goals that you wish to achieve with content (grow your audience, attract your ideal client) and the steps/initiatives that you will implement to achieve those goals. You can use our Content Strategy Template.
- Map Your Content To Your Kickass Client Profile. It is key to have a deep understanding of who you want to purchase your products and/or services. Once you have that, you want to map your content according to what will influence them along the journey they take when making a purchase. You can use our Content Mapping Template.
- Tell A Story. All marketing is storytelling. A good story has a main character (your kickass client), a challenge (their pain), motivations (their why), a hero (you) and the journey (how you will help them). Practice story-telling in all of your content and you will naturally get better at it.
- Partnerships and Collaborations. You don’t have to create all content on your own. Whether it’s having a guest blogger on your site or teaming up with another business to offer shared services, collaborations are a great way to both give and receive content.
- Distribute Your Content – Time to plan how and where you will share your content. Which social media platforms work best for that content. For instance, video is best for Facebook and blogs are great for LinkedIn. If you are sharing on multiple platforms (which you most likely will), how can you differentiate how it’s shared while creating a cohesive brand story?
Content creation can be both a complete pain-in-the-butt and totally fun, often at the same time, (it is for me, at least). Its purpose is beyond basic marketing; it’s the part of your business where you get to connect to your customers and really share your enthusiasm and passion for what you do. In a frequently impersonal business world, that’s definitely something that everyone appreciates!
You get to solve their problems and provide them with tremendous value. In every sale the buyer is thinking to themselves, “What’s in it for me?” If your content can answer that question, “That’s gold, Jerry. Gold!”
Recent Comments