Grow your business with a better Content Marketing Strategy. A content marketing strategy will get your business in front of your target demographic, potential leads, and existing customers by sharing your business’s story online.
I’m gonna lay this out for you – YOU NEED TO BE DOING VIDEO MARKETING!
I know this is NOT what you wanted to hear, but if are frustrated with everything you are doing NOT converting for you then why wouldn’t you want to try this?
Video should be acting as the pillar for ALL your content marketing. In 2019 more than 82% of content consumed online was video. *Mind Blown* You need to be doing this.
So let’s get you started on the path for content marketing success (and leads & sales) for 2020 by mapping out what to make, how to create it, where to share, and to keep up with the leads.
- Do the research. You content needs to be getting you targeted relevant traffic and convert that consumer into a buyer (or potential buyer). To do this, you need to know what you need to be creating. If your content isn’t what people are interested in, they aren’t going to find you, watch you or buy from you.
In order to research you need to know industry or niche, what your product is you want to sell, and who you want to be your target demographic. So take the time to clearly identify these three things so you know what to be searching for when researching what content you should be creating.
So for example, if you are a local spa, your niche is ‘health and beauty’ in your local area, your product is your subscription massage service or packages, and your demographic is probably women 21-50, within 5 miles of your address, who are interested in health & wellness.
Knowing this, you can now figure out what your topics should be for your content. It would be things like “best massages in address” or “Spa day package in address”. These search terms, or keywords, will not only direct you on what videos to make but will also be the foundation for your marketing strategy around this piece of content.
For a more in depth tutorial on HOW to Search for content to create, click the card above or find that video in the description below.
- Now that you know WHAT content you should be creating, it is now TIME TO CREATE! But before you just plop down in front of that camera there are something you need to have prepared first.
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- Know what you are going to say. Even though you might be the expert in your field, it never hurts to organize your thoughts. Bullet point out the things you want to say so you can reference them when recording. You could script out your video, but that can come across as stiff, especially if you don’t have a teleprompter.
- Think about where you are recording. Now I have a studio setup in my office and if you are going to be doing a lot with video (like I know you are) you should consider it too. But at the very least remember be seen, keep it quiet, don’t let them get distracted:
- Be seen means find a nice well lit room or a window that you can stand next to record. People want to see your face and the subject matter.
- Keep it quiet means you don’t want a lot of background noise. This isn’t always things like loud coworkers or a noisy street, it can also be things like your air conditioner or a fan.
- And Don’t let your audience get distracted by what’s going on behind you on the video. If people are walking around or even something as simple as an open door you will lose people.
- Remember you know this stuff! You are the expert, so don’t let the camera freak you out. Pretend you are talking with a customer who came in the door or someone you met at a networking event. Hell pretend it’s your best friend and just have a conversation. You can fumble over words or say weird stuff, don’t worry about it! That’s what editing is for. *wink
- Now that you have made your video it’s time SHARE IT EVERYWHERE! Now, as I mentioned before you want your videos to be the pillar for your content marketing strategy. But what is the MOST wonderful thing about creating video content is that you can create it once and keep using it over and over again in your marketing.
With just one video, you can upload it to youtube to allow for your video to be evergreen (meaning continue to be found because it is always relevant). You could upload it natively to Facebook and allow for your video to be seen your audience and maybe boost it with some ad dollars.
You can promote that Youtube video through social media channels like Twitter and Linkedin. You can chop it up into little sound bites and make Story videos or Instagram news feed posts. You can create a blog around that video (optimized with that keyword search you did above) and then create a Pinterest pin and backlink it to that blog. (and hey bonus points for embedding that video into that blog post.)
You can even put your videos up on platforms like Medium or Reddit to get them seen by your potential target. You just need to test where the places to share your content are because that is going to tell you where you should be investing more of your time.
By promoting your content you created based on that keyword research is going to allow for you to make sure your content is seen by the right audience to get them into your sales funnel.
- Speaking of your sales funnel, step Four is using that content for Other Marketing. When you create something that you know your target demographic likes, you need to make sure you have someway to keep talking with them after they watch your video or read your blog or Like your post.
Make sure you have taken the time to:
- Install your Facebook Pixel on to your website to track traffic that comes from users interacting with your Facebook content. This will allow for you to create incredibly targeted Facebook ads to those who are already familiar with your brand.
- Make sure have setup Remarketing with Google for your site so that your website ads can follow your consumers around the internet to stay in front of them encouraging them to buy.
- Give um a freebie via email. I have a popup on my site that drips people into my email list on a weekly bases. Why? Because I am continuing to offer them value based on the content they are already consuming from me. You need a way for people to give you their email address in the event they don’t instantly purchase from your site. By giving them something of value that solves a problem they have that you can fix for free, then they are likely to share their name and email in exchange for the answer.
Tracking will tell you want is and isn’t working in your content marketing plan.
- Oh yea, you need a plan. FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL. I know it is hella cheesy, but man, it works! I sit down before each month and review what worked last month, what’s trending, questions that my audience wants answers to, and other nuisances of my industry and create a plan for what content I need to make, schedule a time to make it, and then map out the month with when content will go live.
Having a plan for your Content Marketing Strategy with a content marketing calendar is going allow for you to know exactly what is going on in your marketing every day. You will know what messaging is happening, what objectives need to be met, what to measure, and what is or isn’t working. There are a lot of great tools out there to help you organize your content calendar including my favorite content management tool, Sendible. Not only can I schedule my content to all the platforms I use, but I can use their calendar tool to see when everything is scheduled to go live, engage in the conversations, and track the reporting all from one place.
Another idea for sharing your content would be to allow for your team to be in the loop so they can support you by sharing your initiatives with their customers and leads as well as help you promote your content. If you were to empower your employees to participate in the creation of your content. By having your team helping with you content you could see a huge return. The Daily Egg said that they saw a 97% increase in conversions by empowering their teams to help with creating content and distributing it.
2020 is going to have so many things happening and with the ever changing world of the internet, the best thing you can do is research, create, promote and plan. Stay the course and make sure to test what is and isn’t working for you.
