Thoranna

Content Marketing: Creativity and Organisation

I want to talk a bit about the practical stuff around content marketing. 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?

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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?

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 ;)

Content Marketing: Are You Giving Them What They Want?

Marketing is changing. It has changed a lot since the start of the 21st century. 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 [Read more…]

Sample Post

Why Magnetic Headlines Are Crucial for Your Posts

Welcome to Rainmaker. This is a sample post to get you started on your journey. Don’t forget that your headline is the most important aspect of writing a great post, and getting readers to read your opening paragraph. The first four to six sentences of your post are critical, because if you don’t hook your audience, they will get bored and click away. What is the benefit you will provide readers that you promised in the title? Be sure to describe the signs of the problem you will offer a solution to toward the end of your post.

Use subheads to improve readability and gather interest

Here you can begin to describe the underlying causes of the problem you have the solutions to, using persuasive arguments and great storytelling, and readers will have no choice but to read more.

Subheads help readers scan your content quickly

Bullet points are helpful to keep your copy reader-friendly, and a proven standard for making a solid argument:

Tell a great story, but don’t over-write it. Be authentic!
Use internal cliffhangers to entice readers to read more.
Use a great image to make an impression on readers from the start.

Subheads draw readers’ attention to your call to action

When you provide real solutions and insights for your prospects and customers, you build trust and authority that will allow you to deepen the conversation further with an opt-in or call-to-action. Sign up here! This is where a compelling call to action makes it clear to your readers what they need to do next to implement your solution. Good luck!