Look Under The Hood For An Effective Content Marketing Plan

Focus In To Get It Out (There)

What’s In A Business?

Every business has a purpose, is filling a perceived need or offering some kind of solution whether it’s through a service or a product. It also has a (potential) customer base, something to sell and (theoretically) someone who wants to buy it. That’s commerce. Every business has some form of commerce. You’ve got it. I want it and I am willing to pay you for it. Basics, right? It’s an exchange.

As singular or even successful as your business may be or whatever your business model, for the purposes of this article, let’s strip it down and think of that exchange as merely being the scaffolding for the marketing that will attract and convert customers. That scaffolding is the basis upon which you will build your marketing. Without marketing of some kind, there’s a void. You will be lacking participants in the exchange. Even if it’s as simple as word of mouth referrals. Or brick and mortar; walk-ins off the street. You’ve still pulled in the person to complete the exchange with somehow, through an acquaintance, an existing customer, your website, an ad in a magazine, that pretty shiny thing in the window, the enticing music coming through the front door or what your sign says just right.

Your Business Identity

Every business also has a personality, character, style, and a voice. That’s the defining philosophy and behavior of what you do and why and how you do it. Together, these things catalyze the germination of a consistent business identity and subsequently, how that will be offered and received.

This identity thing is the kind of stuff I talk about when I am steering towards my Content Marketing spiel for people who aren’t aware of what it is, don’t understand it or who are wary of the work. Actually, this is the Content Marketing spiel. Learning about Content Marketing starts with building awareness about identity and the necessity of defining it for marketing.  It’s the first step in creating a strategy for creating content. Knowing who you are is paramount to content marketing and it can take a little digging.

Content Marketing

With Content Marketing, what we want to do is pursue methods of expression through the development and promotion of content that communicates who you are and what you have to offer. We create content that comes directly from that identity you’re defining in order to:

• Attract leads or prospects
• Help them to get to know you
• Build relationships with them
• Educate them about things related to your industry, your services, what you do, what you make
• Gain their trust and become who they turn to for what you’re selling
• Be the expert they will rely on and enjoy engaging with.
• And ultimately convert them into customers.

Jon Parks says it well: “At its core, it is about sharing what you know with the people that want to hear about it.”

What’s Under Your Hood?

A few ways to look at and utilize that phrase:

• What’s under the hood are the ingredients that blend together to create the alchemy of your business and your business identity and from that, the material you can use for content you will create to market your business.
• What’s under the hood are the internal workings of something that is normally hidden or not seen.
• What’s under that hood may not be obvious from outward appearances even on an intuitive level.

Capitalize On This

What’s under the hood may inform you about what you want to push up to the foreground, make visible. Take a look at the workings of your business. Pull it apart a bit to examine the pieces that make it up. You will find that there is a wealth of material hiding in the crevices. This is material you can capitalize on to create the content for your content marketing.

Be The Host

Be the host of your own invention. Invite your prospects in to your world across the web, welcome them, treat them with hospitality, let them know how important they are to you, how glad you are that they showed up. This can be achieved through content you create. For them.

This is content that you will give freely at no cost. You create it and give it away to attract and convert potential customers, retain existing customers or attract the attention of people who can influence your customer, client or member base. There’s tremendous opportunity for creativity and inventiveness in the development of this content, unlimited, really. It might be the:

• The articles you write for your blog
• Guest blogging (yes, we can still guest blog if we go about it correctly)
• Videos you create
• Podcasts
• Events you produce
• Infographics (maybe and with caution)
• How-to guides
• Photos
• Case studies
• e-books
• Emails,
• Articles that ask and answer questions your customers may have
• Even the comments you make on Social Media can be part of your content marketing strategy.
• Or content on your website
• More…

Of course, the content you produce and publish will need to be promoted, but I’ll leave that for another post.

I Can’t Leave You Without This Word Of Warning…

One thing is for sure. Whatever you produce needs to be of the highest quality you can muster. There is a glut of content flooding the internet and it’s not only important to stand out but poor quality can be harmful to your business’s health. As Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting points out in his recent Forbes article:

• The number of channels to market your produce and publish your content is virtually unlimited
• Content has flooded every available channel
• Consumers and businesses are more sophisticated about what they see online
• Google has greatly improved its ability to detect and punish low quality content
• So this increases the need to stand out, fight for visibility and attention

It’s In The Details

Think about the details, the core of what you do and what you’re about and make something of it. Don’t pass over the small stuff that you may deem as meaningless. That may be where your treasures lie. So how about it? Where do you think you’ll discover your own gems? The ones you can expand upon?

What has your experience been? Questions? Feel free to comment here or if you wish, you can find me on Google+. Being me.

Pre-Remix photo credit: cking via photopin cc