It's All About The Content
With over one billion websites floating out there in cyberspace, vying for attention and business, it is critical that you provide your readers a reason to keep coming back.
Content is King! Engaging your readers with high-quality content, information relevant to your products and services, and exciting stories that connect you on a personal level with your audience will set you apart from your competition.
Readers connect with stories--humans have told stories for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s one of the ways that we relate to each other and communicate vital pieces of information. Creating your brand around your personal history and passions, reasons for launching your business, and even own challenges and struggles on your path to building a successful business can create buy-in and increase confidence in you, your products, and your company.
With opportunities to post rich content via social media, run a blog for your business, and even send out blast communications via email and text to engage your readers, it has never been easier----yet more critical---that you post relevant, engaging content rich in keywords to get you noticed!
What Is Content Marketing? Content marketing is the action of creating authentic, passionate, relevant, engaging content with the express purpose of connecting with a target audience. It is the hope of every entrepreneur that these connections will result in the creation of a loyal following and loyal business. A long-term strategy of content marketing builds lasting relationships between business owner and customer by providing rich, relevant content to them on a regular basis.
When customers feel a sense of connection to a company, brand, or even person, they gravitate toward those products and services offered by them. Eventually, loyal and satisfied customers will return time and again to make purchases from their preferred vendor because a trusted relationship has developed between them. The level of personal attention you can devote to your customer will very often determine your business success; we all want to be heard and valued, and we will give their business to those entrepreneurs that create that sense of personal service for us.
Effective Strategies For Content Marketing
To make your content relevant and engaging, you need to understand your audience. You wouldn’t attempt to convince a classroom of music teachers that they need to learn to build a car engine from the ground up, would you? Walking into that classroom and spewing out a bunch of technical language regarding parts needed, assembly techniques, and troubleshooting will have you promptly escorted right out of that meeting. They want content that pertains to them in language that they understand, and they need to show at least an interest in the topic of which you are so passionate.
You need to “learn the language,” “create buy-in,” and “create a sense of urgency” around why your potential customers need your products and services. Using keywords and key phrases to evoke emotion and inspire action will not only hook your readers, but it will incite them to act. The goal of all content marketing is sales, after all!
Once you are speaking the language of the customers you wish to target, the list of strategies to promote yourself with fresh, engaging content is nearly limitless. Offering webinars, writing a blog, keeping your website relevant and up to date, posting videos and including sizzling graphics are all valid ways to promote yourself online. Before you become too overwhelmed with all of the options that exist for you, however, consider fine-tuning one or two mediums and adding more as you become more comfortable with expansion.
Good Content Vs. Great Content Simply put, if you are not creating profits that significantly exceed your expenses, then you have good content. Good content is only “good enough” to make a modest living, but it will not necessarily catapult you to your dream life. Great content, on the other hand, is leverage for you and your business; with a few well-chosen words and strategies, along with knowledge of how to use them to optimize your search engine results, you can skyrocket yourself to success.
Content marketing is an extremely competitive business these days, and to rise to the top, you either need to have intimate knowledge of your niche, or you need to employ someone who does. We’ll come back to this vital step to success as we delve a little deeper into how to implement action steps to putting your content to work for you.
Other entrepreneurs are hard at work creating mediocre content, terrible blog posts, and subpar graphics that are cluttering up the internet. You could use this as an excuse not to create more content, or you could set yourself apart by creating quality content that gets noticed.
Who would you like to notice you? Google first, and then your customers. Your customers will most likely view you through an internet search, so you will want to make sure that you make the top rankings on Google’s search engine page. How do you do this?
Search Engine Optimization, Baby! Searches performed for information, products, and services result in millions of results are available to you, the consumer. Typically, a Google page presents ten search listings per page. How many of us spend our valuable time scrolling through page after page of listings, coming to rest on link number 742 that meets all of our consumer needs?
NOT!
Statistics show that 80 percent of all searches performed end on the first or second page of results, which means for you and your business to get noticed, you need to be on those first two pages.
How do you move up in rankings?
You keep creating quality content! Inserting keywords, including trending topics in your text, and adding additional, relevant content on a regular basis are all ways to ensure that Google takes notice of you. The more Google regards your content as relevant, the higher you will move up in rankings. Through your continued use of social media, blog posts, and quality content on your website, you are using the law of averages to get you noticed.
Content At Different Stages Of The Marketing Process
To follow your customers and have them follow you, you must give some consideration to different needs at different stages of the relationship building process.
Awareness Content is content that makes people aware of the fact that you have products and services that could fit their needs. Using SEO and social media marketing techniques to put yourself out there consistently will help build brand awareness.
Consideration Content continues to put your brand in front of interested consumers, but there is a process of give-and-take that begins in this phase. Having customers sign up for a newsletter, asking for contact information in exchange for “freebies,” and inviting potential customers to fill out a survey about current needs and desires will give you needed information to continue to craft your content in ways that make you irresistible to customers.
Decision Stage Content will include communication between you, the business owner, and the customers as to why they need your products and services, what sets you apart from your competition, and a call to action. Calls to action can be gentle or commanding, depending on the type of relationship you have with them, and they can be done in one communication or over the course of several subsequent communications. It is essential to follow up after sales transactions to ensure that you maintain ongoing relationships with customers, gauging their level of satisfaction with your customer experience, continually monitoring your transactions to see how you can consistently build relationships, forging new ones, and improving your business.
Who Has Time For This?
If you want your business to succeed and relationships to thrive, you can’t afford NOT to put effort into creating quality content and prioritizing the process of marketing. Most business owners make the mistake of thinking their time is more valuable spent in writing checks to vendors, monitoring the budget, and thinking of new ways to advertise. That thinking and incorrect prioritization will result in the danger of letting your hard earned relationships lapse, resulting in lost sales.
Many entrepreneurs don’t know enough about the process of search engine optimization, content marketing techniques, and other promotional strategies, often resulting in many painful mistakes in the beginning stages of setting up a business that has the potential to cause complete failure.
Are You Aware? There are talented, competent and experienced professionals just waiting to help you with the creation and promotion of quality content. Who are they?
MaxGroup Business Solutions, that’s who!
MaxGroup Business Solutions is a leader in effective marketing and branding strategies that will get you noticed. They will tell your story in such an engaging and passionate way that it will attract customers that reach out to you for more information. Creating that critical first impression in the minds of consumers can be a daunting task; let the experts at MaxGroup work with you to make your brand perception sizzle in the minds of your customers.
Take Your Business to the Next Level Now! For more information: https://www.maxgroupbusiness.com/seo. We wish you continued and increased success!