Content marketing is a really good way to drive sales over the long-term. But if you want to succeed with content marketing, you need to focus on telling rather than selling. If you provide helpful, relevant, interesting content, you'll develop a reputation as a trusted expert. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. At that [...]
Struggling to think of content marketing ideas? In that case, do an online search for "international days" – things like Earth Day and International Women's Day. In those instances, the idea would be to try to find an environmental angle or gender equality angle you could write about in your blogs or social media posts. There [...]
As a general rule, it’s better for small businesses to do more marketing rather than less. But there needs to be a point to all this marketing; consumers need to think you have a good reason for interrupting them. Otherwise, your marketing will be seen as annoying spam rather than helpful content. Good marketing always has [...]
Content marketing works. The more blogs and videos and social media posts you publish, the more leads and referrals and sales you're going to generate. That said, there are a few caveats if you want your small business’ content marketing to pay off. First, content marketing works only in the long term. It’s not a get-rich-quick [...]
Here’s a clever idea that allows you to simultaneously do content marketing AND build relationships with dream referral partners. First, identify who your dream referral partners are. The companies that you’d love to work with but that don’t know you exist. Think of blogs you can write that are relevant to those referral partners. Contact them [...]
The research is in: people who speak plain English are considered smarter than those who use corporate BS. In a nice coincidence, I discovered this research soon after reading a stupendously awful strategy statement from a company called CarrierBank*. “‘One CarrierBank’ is an integrated, customer-centric business model that enables customers to choose any of the Group’s [...]
"Nick! Help! We've run out of content marketing ideas! What should we talk about?" Don’t worry: you’re not alone. This is a common marketing problem faced by lots of small businesses. When people run out of ideas, I tell them to focus on answering whatever questions their customers are asking them. If you go to the [...]
Every small business should do content marketing. Yes, even yours. Why? Because if you don't market to your customers, your rivals will have the field to themselves. Every day, you need to deliver relevant, helpful information to your customers. That might include some combination of: Blogs Social media posts Videos Phone calls Emails Text messages Direct [...]
Here's a marketing idea on steroids for your small business. Give your customers a book. And not just any book – but one that you've written. This book will immediately establish you as an industry expert, because only industry experts have books. It will also differentiate you from your rivals, because none of them will have [...]
Tell, don't sell – that's the key to content marketing. People hate to be sold to. But they like to be educated and entertained. If your business produces helpful, interesting blogs, videos and social media posts, you'll get customers to consume your marketing. And the more customers who consume your marketing, the more sales you’re going [...]
