I started writing this book on marketing and wanted to share my first draft of the first chapter. Let me know your thoughts!
Chapter One: Infused Content Marketing
The key to any successful marketing campaign is to first focus with extreme detail on the ideas that you are sending out to the world. Before I or anyone can begin to tell you how to market your brand, you have to understand what it is you are actually selling. Nowadays in the online world, it is not enough to just have a great idea or product, it is all about what you are saying to get people to you and how you are doing it. The ‘what you are saying’ side of things is what we call content. This includes the text on your website, videos, blogs, articles, social media sites and interactions, e-books, CPC ads, and other items of this nature. This is the information that isn’t necessarily just selling your products or services, but is building creditability and trust with potential customers that will eventually lead to selling your products to them. And the ‘how’ side of things is something most of us are familiar with, and that is marketing. Marketing is the action side of things and is the way you chose to display your content for the world to see. So in this chapter, we will discuss the infusion that occurs when we combine the two and have what is called content marketing.
Content marketing is defined as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” This is a very detailed definition, so let us take a look at this and break it down starting backwards. I want to begin with the ending because I not only think it is the most obvious part of the definition, but it is also the root cause as to why majority of you are reading this book in the first place, which of course is “ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” For the most part, without profit, there is no brand to grow, so we must have our pillar base begin with the foundation of the marketing campaign and that is to drive profit. But as I mentioned before, this content we are marketing is not selling your products as an ad would, rather it is selling your knowledge of the industry so that your products and brand can be trusted.
The old way of doing things centered around creating ads that drove direct sales of your product. But now, it is all about getting people to come to your website or social media sites again and again for the content, so that they can become repeat customers and just as important, supporters of the brand. The idea is to take people who would just be casual customers and make them become dedicated customers who aid in your marketing of the brand. Think of it like a political campaign where you have grassroots supporters going door to door for you, rather than just people who support you but don’t tell anyone or invest anytime into spreading the word about you. Once you have this type of support for your brand, the sky is the limit as you have people who are doing free, word of mouth marketing for you in the online world. This impact is often unquantifiable.
The next part of the definition is a key piece because it focuses on your most profitable type of customer, the repeat customer. But it is not enough to just have repeating business from anywhere, as the definition says, “retain a clearly-defined audience,” because the more clear the audience is, the more you can cater to their desires, which will ultimately create more profit for your brand. Adobe stats reveal that “In the US, 40% of revenue comes from returning or repeat purchasers, who represent only 8% of all visitors” [http://success.adobe.com/assets/en/downloads/whitepaper/13926.digital_index_loyal_shoppers_report.pdf] So as you can see, adapting to best fit your repeat customers can not only drive profit, but make sure you are spending your time focused in the right areas.
Now we get into a very simple part, but in my opinion is the number one place people drop off from growing their brand and that is the “consistent content to attract” part of things. The ideas that I use with clients are never complex ideas that only a web person would understand, so it is never confusion that is keeping these clients from taking my ideas and turning them into action and profit. It is rather the lack of applying the ideas day in and day out, which is necessary for growing any brand. Why do you think you see Coca-Cola marketing everywhere, daily? It is not because you won’t remember their brand exists, it is because people buy what is constantly right in front of them. This means you have to be in front of your potential customers as often as you can; and that takes almost daily effort you can either do yourself or pay someone else to do, but it must be done. To put it simply if you do not have the daily time or a significant budget for marketing, it is difficult growing your brand and you will be stuck in the slow, word of mouth marketing loop. Of course word of mouth marketing is GREAT, but it will not grow your brand to the destinations you seek.
The two other factors that are absolutely necessary for your content to flourish is that it must be “valuable” and “relevant” as the definition of content marketing states. If you are in the know in regard to your industry and understand all of the current ins and outs of your product or service, then the valuable and relevant aspects should be easy to handle. Take all of your vast knowledge that helped you turn your idea into a brand in the first place, and let the world know. Your time and trials and errors are your key to getting and maintaining the attention of potential clients and other major players in your industry, which will help build creditability around your name. Some advice here would be to make sure that the path you are detailing is still in line with the current path to having success in your industry. If it is not, find ways to tie your old way of doing things into the new method. This way you are staying relevant while telling your story that you know well, just incorporating some new ideas with the old ones. For example if you primarily used word of mouth marketing to find success and that is no longer viable in the industry, you could describe how social media is the new word of mouth and tie your old methods into some of the new ones you learn by reading this book. This way you show that you have experience and merit, but are also staying current with times.
Take this information you hold and turn it into a blog or article series for example, or create a post listing the top ten things your learned when starting out, or create a video diary discussing the trials and tribulations of working in your industry. If this does not sound easy to you, then you have two viable options: you either need to get to researching now to gain the knowledge necessary, or you need to hire someone who has proven expertise in your industry or field of work. People will often try and take shortcuts and pay for cheap articles, ads, and other forms of written content that are about the subject at hand yes, but the content is mainly filler that does not drive any interest or want for more. This is why I harp on having a sufficient budget for marketing, so that you can pay for content that is actually worth paying for. Even if you do decide to pay, it is always good to have a firm grasp on the subject matter you are paying for so that you can easily identify quality work from cheap work and ensure it is up to date information.
Next in our focus on the definition is the word “distributing,” which is not only vital to the content marketing side of things, but the next chapter’s focus area, social media. The channels that you select to market through, could be the difference between a successful campaign and a failed one. In this book, I focus on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Google, but there are many other great avenues as well that may better fit your specific niche for your brand. I find that these listed content distributing sites are proven with not only millions of users, but they also have great paid ad features that are essential to any marketing plan. In the chapters where these sites are the focus, I will go in depth on both the organic (free) side and the paid side of marketing on these websites. But for now what is important to take away, is that you need to heavily research and understand the websites you are going use to distribute your content. And in this research it is important that these sites are the same ones your target audience are using. If your users are primarily on Pinterest, then then main focus of your marketing campaign should on Pinterest, even if Facebook is the social media platform you know best, you must adapt to where your target audience is.
“Creating” is the next center of attention in the definition. And while this was slightly covered in the ‘consistent content’ paragraph, it is crucial we again focus on the consistent creation of content and harp on a few key points, while introducing a couple of more. Whether you do it yourself or hire help, unique content is absolutely needed during the creation process or there will not be interest in what you are saying. As people’s attention spans only get smaller and smaller, businesses and people like you, are having to find new ways to meet the demand of the short amount of time allotted to get the message across to potential customers. Often times words are not enough, which is why images, videos, and audio ads are now a must. And yes, this will take more time to learn these crafts to do it yourself, or it will cost you more out of your marketing budget, but it must be done to truly stay relevant and seen. There was a time when posting a catchy slogan on Facebook was enough to drive traffic, but as the site and the times have changed, so have the strategies. Now, it is short and to the point text and videos with eye catching visuals, that work.
Sometimes all it takes is dressing up the great content you already have, so it is not always a huge undertaking when ensuring your content is creative and will drive traffic. One simple thing to do is turn your blog or article content into a type of list like “The Top Ten Things You Should Know” or “A Checklist to Always Keep Handy”. People love lists and top ten lists because it makes it seem like a lighter and easier read, as well as the desire to see what made the top of the list. Another idea is to recycle your past work. For example, take your most popular, still relevant post from two years ago or one year ago or however long ago you have, and turn into a video. You already know the content is well received, so there is not much risk involved, only major upside, including the fact you can get paid for your video content by YouTube. But sometimes even with dressing up the content, you still need catchy images and carefully chosen target words to get people’s attention and often times this where it is a good idea to pay. If you can find an affordable and quality graphic designer and keep them around long term, as the need for the images should stay prevalent as your brand continues to grow.
Now to complete our definition breakdown we have “a strategic marketing approach focused”. Which this part is basically saying to reach our goals of consistent, quality continent that will drive profit, we must have our full attention on our set goals and have the proper tools and plans in place to ensure this occurs. This means we must set the specifics of our plan, so that we do not use wasted energy in other areas. If our focus for one plan is to drive Facebook traffic, there should not be focus on Twitter or Instagram in the plan, unless it is connected to directly promoting your Facebook account.
So to recap, in order to drive profit we must have up to date, interesting online content that focuses on the needs of repeat customers and that is delivered to them on their own terms, while also fitting the goals of the particular marketing plan. This may seem simple enough, but having a grasp on why the content is so important is a must before you begin to display your ideas and thoughts. The more high quality content you have, the better you look in the eyes of potential customers and clients, but you also begin to make a name for yourself to fellow colleagues as we mentioned before. And once you become a name in your industry, it opens new doors not only for your brand but for you as well. This creates opportunity to writing a well received book, speaking engagements, seminars, conferences and the whole nine yards. But most importantly, it drives traffic to your website which will drive profit if you have a well done site with sought after information.
These chapters are created to help you understand and put together the best strategy for your marketing plans. And now that you have an understanding of what content marketing means, you can start to see how this takes shape for your particular brand. In the following chapters I will go into detail on how to apply this knowledge to your website, social media sites, and general marketing strategies. In the next chapter, we will focus on what I think is the number one way to get your content out to the online world and that is by way of social media.