Creativity and organisation

In this, my last post for now on content marketing, I want to talk about practical stuff. Our biggest headache is often how we are going to produce our own content and find what other stuff we can share, for example on social media, which demand quite a lot of activity and can be challenging to keep alive and active.

If you have been following me for some time, whether you have been reading the blog, subscribing to emails or following on social media, you can see that I use content marketing a lot.

The content can take various form, can be presented in various ways and the purpose of the content can be varied. You can have blogs, videos, social media, ebooks, webinars to name a few of the most common. Knowing how best to put the content forward and where best to distribute it is somewhat of an art – but mostly a skill that can be learned. Another thing, which has nothing to do with art and everything to do with being organised, is to set things up in a way that makes it easy to constantly churn out content and keep your visibility without working 24-hours-a-day.

In my company, I am the whole marketing department. Granted, I am on more social media than I would recommend, but that's simply because I am in the marketing „biz“ and need to know the most common ones and have some experience in using them. However, I recommend that you find the outlet most suited to your business and you yourself, stick to that, and don't spread yourself too thin. Many people don't understand how active I can be on social media, producing, finding and sharing content. They stare at me open-mouthed when I tell them I spend about one morning a month and 10 minutes a day maintaining that social media presence, and on the whole I spend perhaps 2-3 hours a week blogging and putting together my weekly emails, which include my blog, but also lots of other goodies for those who have signed up – hey, you should get more for signing up than if you have just spent a little like on Facebook ;)

Want to know the magic formula?

Sure, you need the right tools to make the content and share it without it being too much work – for example by scheduling your social media in advance, connecting media where appropriate etc. Hootsuite does kind of save my life :)  The magic however isn't really magic at all – it's a system. An organised system for how I find stuff to make content about, how to make the content, and how to find content from others that I can share with my followers. The thing is that a huge part of marketing is not about creativity (or as one of my teachers used to call it „arty farty“ stuff) – it's down to purely practical – and to some, boring – organisation – and boy, does it make life easier!


And right now, as you are reading this blog post, I might just be enjoying my holiday in sunny Spain! :) - but with the help of organisation, a marketing system, my content calendar and technology, the show does go on!

The system, the tools and techniques are exactly the kind of things I teach my clients when I teach them about content marketing ;)

Don‘t build things on sand

Content marketing can be a very very strong marketing tactic for smaller businesses. It does require time and effort, but not necessarily that much cold hard cash – sometimes no cash at all. What it does require however is that you have already laid a solid foundation.

If you don't know who you want to appeal to and if you don't know your viewers or readers, how are you going to make content that appeals to them? How will you know where best to share it with them? How will you know what kind of content they want to see? – do they like text, video, images etc?

Also, you don't want to only talk about what it is you do, you need to have room to talk about other things that your target group is interested in – otherwise you are just like that annoying guy at the party who can never talk about anything but himself and what he is interested in.

Therefore it is extremely important that you know your target group or groups and know and understand them very well. Oh, and if you have a number of target groups, you need to know what different things appeal to each of them, and how best to deliver the content so that it is effective, but also to make sure that content meant for one group does not negatively affect another group should they come across it. You need to be clear on all of these things for your content to be effective.

You also need to know who you want to be, what you want them to think of you, what feelings you want to evoke with them through your content. Your content is an extremely strong brand builder – but if you don't know what you want your brand to be then your content can not be effective in building that brand. It can even do more harm than good by muddling your image and causing people to be confused about who you are and what you do. That will never work.

If your content is not consistent, if it does not convey the same overall message and brand, it will never be very effective – and we don't have the time or the resources to be doing things that are not working as hard for us as we are doing ourselves.

We also need to realise how our content works within the marketing process. Content has a different purpose based on where in the marketing process we are using it. Do you want it to grab people's attention? Arouse their interest? Get them to like you? Trust you? Give them a taste of what it is you have to offer? Clinch the sale? Get repeat business? Or help referrals?

Content marketing training is part of the forthcoming Marketing Untangled training and will also eventually be available as a separate program. The content marketing training is useless however if you have not built solid foundations, if you don't know your target group, don't know what you want your brand to be and how you are going to lead people through the marketing process to buy from you.

That's why I keep hammering on about the foundations, the strategy, because if your strategy is well thought out and planned, that will be your rock to build on and everything else you do in your marketing will be so so much more effective. If you build your actions on sand they will just blow away in the wind ;)

Give, give and give some more!

Last week's blog post on content marketing got a really good reaction. Most people seem to prefer the idea of attracting people than pushing things on to them. Personally, I love this development, because this is what marketing is really about. Anticipating and satisfying people's needs in such a way that is profitable to you.

Content marketing is also something most of us are already doing, whether we realise it or not. Most of us actually do a lot of it. Do you have a Facebook page? Are you on Twitter? And perhaps on other social media? Do you blog? Have a mailing list? Etc. etc. These are all part of content marketing and I bet you would like to get even more out of your efforts and in a more focused way.

Education is also a very strong marketing tool. It not only builds positive feelings towards you, but it also makes sure that you are top of mind when people think of an expert in you field. This means having to attract people by giving them something interesting that they feel is worth their time and effort.

Content marketing is not like the last ads before the news, which are there to grab you and kind of shove them in your face – or in the middle of your favourite TV show. People have a choice whether they check out your content, read it, watch it etc. Whether it involves liking your Facebook page, your post, retweeting, signing up for your blog or mailing list, people are in charge and decide if they want to join you. Therefore you need to find that delicate balance between giving them what they want and providing content that ultimately leads to business for you.

Often when you talk about content marketing with non-marketing people - well, even with a lot of marketing people - the reaction is: „Should I just give and give and give?!“

Yes.

Because by giving you are building a relationship. People start to like you and relate to you. By giving your knowledge and showing them what you know and can do, people will regard you as an expert and the go-to person or business in your field. And by giving, you make people want to give back. How do they do that? By spreading the message, telling others about you – and by buying from you ;)

Give and people will like you, it will build their trust in you, people will understand what you do, what you stand for, it reduces their need to try what you have to buy, and the unavoidable perceived risk of buying.

Give and people will reward you by choosing you when it comes to buying what you have to offer.

Are you giving them what they want?

Marketing is changing. It has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years. With the internet, social media, mobile etc. marketing is less and less about one-sided broadcasting of marketing messages, like we know from traditional media like TV, print and radio, and more and more about pulling people in - attracting them.

Marketing is becoming less about grabbing people and more about being there when people are looking for what you have to offer, or anything related to it.

Marketing is less about pushing things on to people and more about pulling people in.

The marketing jargon is that we are moving from outbound marketing to inbound marketing.

A lot of marketing today is about producing content and sharing it with people - just like I am doing with this post, and just like I have done with my short videos on marketing. The content is made to pull people in and to build a relationship with them.

Did you think about this when it came to your website?

Your website is important. Here are a few things that you might not have thought about ;)

Click here to watch the video on YouTube :)