When you run a business, doing the work and making your clients happy is the top priority. Tunnel vision is the result of passion, focus and lots of hard work. Considering a lead pipeline and executing an effective marketing plan can feel like an impossible mountain to climb.
Who has time for this? Where does one begin?
These feelings are all too common; in fact, at AlchemyThree, we have conversations around these concepts with at least a handful of our clients each and every week. And the answer? You’re likely overthinking it.
In this post I am going to share with you a simple strategy that you can implement over the course of a single weekend!
Step 1: Customer Avatar
A marketing strategy is dead in the water without a client avatar (otherwise known as a customer persona). It’s critical that you know who you’re targeting and creating content for.
You’ll want to answer the following questions:
- Where are your customers located?
- What sort of industry are they in?
- What are their hobbies or interests?
- How do they consume their content?
To access a FREE customer avatar worksheet click here!
You’ll want to paint a detailed picture of your ideal client for yourself and your team. This visualization is key to creating content that resonates with your base.
Step 2: Content
If you don’t have a blog, you’re leaving money on the table. It’s just that simple.
You should have a blog on your website as a place to post new, unique and consistent content. This content should be helpful, informative, entertaining and unique.
Why is content so important? How can you be sure that people pay attention to the content that you’ve worked so hard to create?
To answer the first question, content is important for several reasons; it helps to build authority in your industry, it gives your company something to share on social channels (sending traffic back to your website!) and it can help tremendously with organic search engine optimization efforts. As for being able to tell if people are visiting these articles, Google Analytics is your answer!
Step 3: Shred it (social + media)
Once you’ve taken the time to create some unique content (which is definitely the hardest part of this whole exercise) you can start to shred it and share it! And by shredding, what I really mean is repurposing, i.e. getting as much as you can from a single blog post.
For example, take your latest article and post it to the blog on your website (ensuring that the post is easily scannable, with compelling imagery). Then use that same content and create a video, walking your audience through the basics of the post. You will then post this video to YouTube and share it on social media. Now use that same blog post and have an infographic created and make it available for download in exchange for email addresses (i.e. a lead magnet). Lastly, don’t forget to post your article to other outside sources such as Linkedin and Medium, with internal links directing visitors back to your website.
Step 4: Email
Remember those email addresses you collected in exchange for a downloadable infographic? You know have permission to market to these individuals–in fact, now you know that they actually want to hear from you. Better still, you even know what piques their interest!
This is where thoughtful email campaigns come in. Email platforms such as Mailchimp and Active Campaign allow you to to trigger targeted email sequences once a digital asset has been downloaded (infographic, pdf) from your website. These emails are powerful in that they are speaking to a specific pain point (related to the infographic), can increase engagement and–the best part–keep your business top of mind!
Step 5: Rinse and repeat
You now have a basic strategy for writing content and staying top of mind. Creating a repeatable process and automating as much as possible is key to keeping consistent and efficient. Give yourself a few months to settle in to this routine and take on what you know you can handle. One blog post a month is a great starting point!
Are you still feeling overwhelmed? Perhaps you’ve realized that you time is best spent doing what you’re good at (running your business!) as opposed to digging into marketing details?
That’s awesome!
If a team of experts is what you seek–offering big business marketing solutions at a small business price–go ahead and send us a message! We can help 🙂
