So you’re running your business and you want to find new customers on the web, it should be easy. I mean, there’s a thousand tools out there that will help you connect your website to all of the major platforms and reach new customers.
Oh, what’s that? All of these tools take an enormous amount of time and money to use the right way, you say? Well, surely we can just focus on using Facebook to build our brand right? Heck, who even needs a website these days! Hmmph, looks like they changed the algorithm again and now we have to pay even more money to boost our posts. Great.
You need a website, you need a blog, you need content marketing. Let’s do this.
Join South Coast Content Creators for free!
Content Marketing is a clear winner
Let’s make this section real easy:
- Social media platforms own your content
- Search engines change their algorithm on the regular
- Our last salvation is a website we own
If you’ve spent any time searching on ways to attract more customers to your website, chances are you’ve come across the term “content marketing” a dozen or more times. There’s even a Wikipedia entry for it.
Social media platforms aren’t bad, you just don’t want to give them all of your content.
Remember the days when you had 1,000 Facebook fans you could reach 900 of them with a single post? That didn’t last too long. Today you’re lucky if you reach 5% of your fanbase per post, while Facebook pushes you to increase ad spend in the wake of it all.
Invest in content marketing
One of the more attractive things you will read about the phrase content marketing is that creating content is “free.”
Correction, you are free to create any type of content without restriction, but the process itself is certainly not free. The most important part of content marketing — promotion — is doubly not free, if that makes sense.
All of this takes time, effort, and a solid strategy to execute against. It’s all relative to your goals and expectations.
If your business has low competition, you have plenty of time, and you can write a blog post — a single post a month might help you rank and increase traffic. Within that context, your efforts are relatively low for a high reward.
Dial-up the competition, you’re booked wall-to-wall, and having no experience writing or even publishing a blog post — now content marketing just got a whole ‘lot more expensive.
If your competitor is investing in a solid content marketing plan, then you’re finding yourself really far behind the starting line.
What type of content marketing works?
With just a few weeks left in 2019, here are the obvious areas you can stake your content claim in:
- Blogging
- Vlogging
- Podcasting
- Social media campaigns
- Short films
- Education series
- E-mail newsletters
There’s a lot there to sink your teeth into, eh? But here’s the kicker: We need to find synergy across many of these areas in order for content marketing to work.
Identify audience > Create content > Promote > Convert > Nurture > Sell > Promote > Analyze > Repeat
Ooookay, so where do you get help with all of this?
Free content marketing help at South Coast Content Creators
Join South Coast Content Creators for free!
Let’s get this out of the way: If you’re doing business on the south coast, you want to join this group. If you’re spending any amount of time trying to grow a brand online, you want to join this group. If you have a blog, join this group.
Why I started this group
I started this group because I know how hard it is to compete in the online world as a business owner or a small marketing team. Not everyone has the budget to hire a full-time marketing staff, and doing the work yourself can get clumsy.
Why not have a group of like-minded individuals already doing work like this on the South Coast under one roof?
You’ll level-up your content marketing game, find accountability through your peers, and have a place to get inspired for your next piece of content.
You can review the official rules and outlines here: https://trello.com/b/fdT3QYWh/south-coast-content-creators
So what are you waiting for? Join the free South Coast Content creators group today!
