Content Marketing Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Do This Not That Marketing

March 22, 2017 by RonTester Leave a Comment

Developing a Content Marketing Mindset

I just finished rereading Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, and it got me thinking about developing a content marketing mindset. Today, so much of marketing is about online content. For almost all businesses, marketing online can be used to support marketing offline. And for many business, online marketing can become the primary way to market a business.

As I’m sure you know, most people don’t run to the phone book anymore when looking for a business. (Side note: last time I asked someone if they had a phone book (which I was going to use to prop up a projector, not look up a number), they laughed!). Instead, they look for a business online. They ask their friends online. They research online before making their purchasing choices. Whether you have an online business or an offline business, developing a content marketing mindset can help you market your business more effectively and increase your sales exponentially.

Build Your Credibility

The first step toward developing a content marketing mindset involves using the online world to build up your credibility. Use your blog, release white papers, and participate in social media and more to ensure that your reputation is well represented online. Work to perfect every social media profile (it will take time and experimentation) and don’t start an account unless you are willing to keep it up to date at least weekly.

Seek Out Thought Leadership

Getting to know thought leaders in your industry can actually rub off on you and make you into a thought leader – eventually. Find and follow thought leaders in your industry, comment on their blogs, offer donated original content, review their products, and ask them to review yours. Interview them on a podcast. Do what you need to do in order to become part of their circle.

Understand Your Business

As you are building credibility and hobnobbing with thought leaders, study your niche and your business. You need to know everything there is to know, inside and out. That way when someone asks you a question you’re ready with a good answer and “sound bite” that can be used, makes sense and is true representation of what you do and what you stand for. Plus, you’ll have more to say (blog) if you know more.

Become a Strategic Publisher

Learning to think like a publisher is essential today in the online marketing world. Developing a publication calendar will go far in helping you know what information you’re going to share with your audience over time. If you take the time to develop a calendar, you can match product launches with the content. Doing without a publication calendar is a huge mistake. Planning in advance from day one will ensure that everything you do has a purpose.

Develop Your Own Online Space

In the old days of marketing, content marketing consisted of sending out duplicate articles to article directories. But, today content marketing consist of filling out your own online real estate with content before you even think about donating to any other sites. There are some people who disagree, but generally speaking I think it’s smart to establish your credibility and authority on your own site before you shift your attention to other people’s sites. The more relevant, useful and enlightening content that you can put on your own online real estate, the better for SEO, and the better for your audience.

Remember That You Are in Control

Sometimes, as a business owner it can be hard to remember who is in control. But, if you can accept that you’re in control of your own business and your own destiny, you’ll have a better chance of successfully developing and following through on your ideas, as well as meeting your goals.

Build Your Lists

One way to remain in control is to always be building your lists. Your email lists are the difference between success and failure when it comes to online marketing. Set up sign-ups for your newsletter or lists on your content and on your websites in ways that your audience cannot refuse. Plus, provide value by using the lists appropriately to build relationships and provide information.

Build Communities

One way to build relationships is to build online communities through your content marketing. Using your content, lists, and social media networks to build a community is an essential component of content marketing today. Because just producing the content isn’t enough; you have to push it out to your audience, too. Although I focus primarily on my own websites, I do use social media to help build community among those I serve.

Online marketing, and specifically content marketing, is an essential element of marketing today for almost all types of businesses. Developing the right mindset will help you develop the right marketing plan and that will move your business forward.

If you’d like to discuss how to implement a content marketing strategy, please email me for more information.

March 20, 2017 by RonTester Leave a Comment

Content Marketing Mistakes

Content marketing mistakes can undermine the impact your efforts are having. Find out what they are and what to do about them here.

Content marketing is a very important method of getting the word out about your products and/or services. Content marketing is the best way to inform, educate and engage your audience while building authority in the eyes of your audience. However, there are some common content marketing mistakes that you’ll definitely want to avoid.

Ignoring SEO – Search engine optimization involves both on- and off-page actions that you can take to ensure that search engines find your website, blog or product. SEO uses certain techniques and tactics to help your audience find you. Don’t think that it doesn’t matter. The more you put these improvements into place, the better your results. And if you notice things have gone off the rails, SEO-wise, don’t be afraid to face the facts and fix what you can.

Not Using Automation Wisely – Automation can be misused, but it needs to be used to help make everything possible. You’re only one person. Even if you have an assistant, virtual or otherwise, automation will help you get more done. A good rule of thumb is that you should personally respond and interact with people on social media and within comments of your blog, but you should use automation for everything else.

Not Promoting Your Content – When you create any type of content that you want people to find, you should promote it via your social media networks and email. You can even promote it via pay-per-click ads (although I don’t do this, I know people that have and thought it was worth the investment). If you don’t promote your content, you’ll get a lot less positive results from it.

Forgetting to Optimize Your Headlines – Part of search engine optimization involves headlines, but it deserves a special mention. There are some ways to ensure your headlines are optimized. First, put the keywords in the first three words. Second, when possible, test out more than one headline to see what gets the best response.

Creating Poor Quality Content – Your audience doesn’t want a ton of content under all circumstances. If you cannot create quality content on a daily basis, don’t. Create quality content on a schedule that works for you. If it’s high quality, answers questions, and solves problems, it will be welcomed.

Not Publishing Enough – This may sound contradictory, but you do have to publish enough to get noticed and keep the interest of your audience. Don’t get so bogged down in perfection that you neglect creating new content at least weekly.

Giving Up Too Quickly – We’re in an instant economy, and many people aren’t interested in building something sustainable. If a few blog posts don’t result in an immediate flood of business, it’s tempting to quit. The reality is that if you are building a business that will last, you’re going to have to build it brick by brick, post by post. There’s no real shortcut to sustainability. Ultimately, though, if you quit you won’t get the results you want.

If you can avoid these content marketing mistakes, you’ll have a lot more success with your content marketing efforts. To read about Neil Patel’s take on content marketing mistakes, feel free to check out his article here. If you have other mistakes you’d like to warn your fellow readers about, please share them.

February 28, 2017 by RonTester 2 Comments

Creating Content for Social Media

One of the types of content that you need to create in your content marketing endeavors is social media content. Social media content is any content that you will use for purposes of promoting on social media. It might be a blurb that goes with a link to a video or blog post, or it might be an infographic or meme to help you get a point or two across. Creating content for social media is an important part of every business’s marketing strategy.

* Plan Ahead – Most people seem to totally forget to plan ahead regarding social media content. This is a mistake. If you create a blog post, for example, then you should create a tweet, a Facebook post, and other blurbs for whatever social media network that you plan to share the information on. I use PromoRepublic as one source of ideas, then post ideas on my calendar.

* Add the Content to Your Calendar – Include social media content on your editorial calendar. If you know that in August you’re going to promote a great new product or service, then you should also be planning for social media content to use in that promotion — both leading up to the launch and during the launch.

* Create Images for Social Media – Remember that images are a form of content, and that you need to create images for social media sharing. Images are more likely to be shared than text and are an important part of your marketing actions on social media. Using a variety of images as content, like infographics and memes, will increase shares and engagement. For images you can use for free (personal and commercial), I use Pixabay.com. If they don’t have what I’m looking for, I use a stock photo site such as DepositPhotos.com. Please be very careful not to use any image without explicit permission. If you copy and paste an image from another website, it could end up costing you thousands of dollars in legal fees. There are unscrupulous lawyers that make a living suing bloggers and small business people for unauthorized use of photos/images.

* Outsource It – You can use your content calendar to get help creating social media content with experts. These experts can help you create infographics, memes and a with a copywriting expert they can also help you craft just the right words to use for a blurb supporting your other promotions, products and services. I have an awesome virtual assistant that I found on Upwork.com. She does a great job and gives me tremendous peace of mind.

* Share More Than Once – It’s important that you promote the content that you create and that you do it more than once. People do not check their entire social media stream, so sharing the same content with new blurbs and a new spin on the information several times will increase the view rate exponentially. This is something I’m working on. I am sharing on Twitter and Facebook pretty regularly, not so often on LinkedIn, and I rarely reshare content.

* Conduct A/B Testing – Also called split testing, you want to see what times, headlines, and topics get more attention than others. As you collect this data, you’ll soon know exactly what time is best to share any updates with your social media followers. This is something I am reading more and more about but honestly haven’t been doing that much of. Perhaps when I have more time or get more sophisticated in my testing.

* Target Each Audience – Each social media network has its own personality, and the portion of your audience that follows you and engages with you on each network is usually slightly different. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that the content you create is right for that network.

* Create Content Often – With social media you need to have content for most days of the week, and share it more than once per day. This can seem like a lot of content to create, but it all stems from the basic message you want to get across to your audience based on your promotions. I was inspired to post more by Grant Cardone, the sales trainer and author who wrote The 10X Rule. He’s a social media machine, posting a dozen times a day or more. I don’t feel like going there, but I did realize I needed to step it up.

Creating content for social media will be a large part of your content creation program. It will help ensure that the products, services and information that you need to communicate to your audience gets the attention it needs. While you’re busy creating all of this content, be sure to listen to your audience and see what they’re saying. Are they asking questions you can answer? Is there confusion in your market you can help to clarify? More good reasons to post!