7 Steps to Content Marketing Strategy That Converts

7 Steps to Content Marketing Strategy That Converts

by | Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing strategy is key to communicating to grow your business. It’s a strategic plan for creating, sharing, and repurposing information and it all stems from your core purpose and message. It’s the most effective way to add value, attract the right customers, and establish relationships that lead to collaborations, referrals, and sales.

Why Content Marketing Strategy Works

My 7 Steps to Content Marketing Strategy That Converts follows a thread from your core purpose and message all the way through to your social media online presence. These 7 steps become the foundation for all your create—your content. It includes what you share verbally, in writing, on video, and live streaming. It’s how you show up online (and off) in a way that is consistent, clear, and true to your calling. Each step builds upon the one that came before it in this order:

  1. Grounding in Core Purpose and Message – Get clear, concise, and purposeful about your big WHY.
  2. Elevator Invitation – Two to three sentence summary of you, your target market, their results.
  3. Website Copy – Describe you, your services, and boil it down for your Home Page.
  4. Opt-in/Lead Magnet/Free Gift – Pathway from your core message to your core service/program.
  5. List Nurturing and List Building – Communicate to attract more people and nurture your existing audience.
  6. Blogging – Valuable, targeted messaging with purposeful calls to action.
  7. Social Media – To connect, share, engage, and invite.

When you approach your business communication from this framework, you create an unending source of content. It’s a matter of always starting from the first step—your grounding. Why you’re in business in the first place. How you serve. Who you serve. Their results. Not your features. Your big WHY is central to this. Keep it front and center.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy Plan

Elevator Invitation

Craft an elevator invitation from the key elements of your grounding exercise around your core message. Get clear about who you serve, what they gain from working with you, and your big WHY. Be sure to use language that speaks to who you are at your core. What makes you different than all the other “fill-in-the-blanks” that do similar work? If you’re edgy, your elevator invitation should be edgy. This is your first crack at getting people interested to want to learn more.

Website

Create a website, a home base online, where people can go to learn more. Focus on your About Me, Service Descriptions, and the Home Page. Convey your core message. Define how you serve and the ways that people can work with you. Focus on the results they’ll get. Your Home Page should capture all of this clearly, concisely, and with impact. Make an impression that counts.

Opt-In

Create a free gift, an opt-in, of value that establishes your expertise. Give people something that addresses their challenge. It’s a first step on the pathway of potentially working with you. Be sure the step is on the right path. Don’t pick a catchy topic out of a hat. Get in their heads. Listen to what they’re asking for. Have it ultimately lead to a deeper way to work with you—a low-cost product, a higher-end service or program. This is the pathway. Your opt-in points them in the right direction.

List Building and List Nurturing

Build your list and nurture the people on it. Nurture these people who have kindly given you their email addresses. Remind them of how they can put your opt-in to use in their lives, in their business. Continue to give them value and let them know other ways they can connect with you. Communicate with them regularly. These relationships are like gold. Their number is not that important. The value is in the relationship itself. Nurture it. Value it. Value the people behind the relationship. And continue to share your opt-in with others to build more relationships, too.

Blogging

When writing for your blog, start by reviewing your core purpose and message. Get grounded in why you’re writing a blog post in the first place. Not because it’s due. Not because everyone says businesses that blog do better. Blog because it’s a way to convey your core purpose and message. Write because the value you share helps your target audience to do, feel, think, or become inspired about something. Add value. Blog for the people you want to help. Don’t blog for Google. Blog for Joe Shmoe who needs the information you have. Then invite him to an offer you have that can help him further.

Social Media

Business is social if you’re planning to work with people. Have a presence on social media to connect with others; attract the right people; establish, build, and nurture relationships. Add value when you post. Give more than you sell. A lot more! Give from the place of your big WHY. Demonstrate your knowledge. Share your content, share other people’s content, support others, and, in smaller doses, promote your offers. Above all, be a person, not just a brand. Step out from behind your logo.

Send Me the 7 Steps PDF

How Does Your Current Content Marketing Strategy Stack Up?

Consider your content along this continuum. It’s all interrelated. It’s a tapestry of who you are, what you contribute, and how you invite people to know you, work with you, collaborate with you. You create and distribute content for your target audience—those you’re meant to serve—potential clients. Don’t discount all the other valuable relationships you reach with your messaging. Referral sources, collaborators, supporters abound. We just need to be sure we aren’t pushing past them as we clamor for customers. The value of a referral partner can be exceedingly deep. Don’t be short-sighted while trying to gain customers.

Does content marketing strategy speak to you? I’d love to know in the comments below. And if this makes sense, relax into it. Trust that if you believe in its premise—give value, create relationships, solve challenges—your marketing messages are already inside you. We just need to uncover them at the core.

Contact Me about Your Content

Focus on why you’re in business and then convey your messages with strategy that gets you noticed in a noisy online world so you can build the business you deserve. If I can help, it would be my honor to support you through the steps of content marketing strategy. Reach out here and let’s explore how.

5 Periscope Keys to Your Business Success

5 Periscope Keys to Your Business Success

by | Uncategorized

Periscope and other live stream platforms like Facebook Live are some of the newest social media options for online entrepreneurs, authors and business coaches. So, what’s all the hubbub about, anyway?

WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT PERISCOPE?

Well, for starters, Periscope is new-ish, free, forgiving and fun. Periscope, and live streaming in general, added a new dimension and breathed new life into the social media world. Entrepreneurs got excited about getting in front of the camera on their mobile devices to share their message without lots of prep and planning and many are experiencing a significant return on that investment of time.

So, does that mean only established entrepreneurs with a strong video presence can benefit? Not at all!

Periscope is a platform where people at all levels in their professional or personal journey can shine.

Live streaming allows us, as broadcasters, to reach out to people across the globe and share our message through video as we interact with our viewers in real time. We can share content, breaking news in our business, and make offers. In snippets of time, we can demonstrate our expertise, credibility, and communication style.

As viewers, we have access to content and broadcasters all over the globe and the ability to establish relationships with them as well as with other viewers as if we were invited to an impromptu cocktail party where the hors d’oeuvres are morsels of some of the best online content for free.

While broadcasters and viewers are sharing content, learning, and connecting, they are also building their businesses by getting new clients, filling programs, selling their books and getting immediate feedback as they create more content. Hard to see a downside, right?

WHY ISN’T EVERYONE USING PERISCOPE?

So, why isn’t everyone doing it and how is that good news for you?

The answer is one of the usual culprits when it comes to stepping out: fear.

Fear of technology, being on camera, speaking, and general uncertainty about what to expect.

The bright side of this is that as online entrepreneurs, we face fear every day and this is just one more step in the journey. A mindset shift to focus on how Periscope can help your business is often all it takes to build the confidence as you quell the fear. The even brighter side is that many people are still not doing this (and perhaps never will) so by joining the Periscope and live stream train, you are a pioneer and have an opportunity for greater impact than those not willing to step into the platform.

Amassing over a million downloads in its first ten days, and growing upwards of 10 million downloads within a few months of that, it’s still estimated that active Periscope broadcasters account for less than 10% of users.

The stage can be yours if you know how to use strategy around it.

HOW CAN PERISCOPE HELP MY BUSINESS?

Periscope is a constantly evolving live stream platform where you can express yourself, your business and your products in creative and engaging ways that capture attention quickly and lead to conversion in terms of new clients and new business.

THERE ARE 5 KEYS TO PERISCOPE SUCCESS FOR YOUR BUSINESS:

1. Engagement

Sharing your content and receiving feedback, answering questions, and interacting with potential clients and customers are great ways to initiate, maintain, and grow relationships. If, as I do, you feel relationships are the backbone of your business, periscope is a vital way to grow.

2. Access

Periscope is a mobile-based app (with viewing available on desktop) designed to “explore the world through someone else’s eyes” (as stated in the periscope.tv tagline). This allows you to broadcast, view and stay connected anywhere you have wifi access and/or data to use the app. It means you can “talk” with and learn from people across the globe who you might otherwise never discover. It also means you and your content can be accessed by people all over the globe.

3. Immediacy

Live stream platforms like Periscope happen in “real time” in the moment. The intrigue of having a conversation with an influencer and the ability to reach your followers at the touch of a button as if you are together are incredible draws.

4. Convenience

Everything you need is on your mobile device. Although equipment and accessories are a great way to upgrade your broadcast experience, they are optional. All you need is your device (smartphone, tablet, or iPad), an idea, and a Periscope account and you can create, engage, and offer calls to action to your viewers.

5. Community

My favorite aspect of Periscope is its sense of community. It has leveled the playing field because broadcasts, even with high numbers, have an intimate feel and people follow and return to broadcasters who offer value. Influencers, newbies and established periscopers continue to foster a welcoming hand of connection. With the strategy to bring these connections to other platforms and offline, it’s easy to continue the “conversation” and discover ways to get more clients, more business, more supporters, and more collaborators.

ARE YOU USING PERISCOPE AND THE POWER OF LIVE STREAM?

Why not?

I truly hope that you’ll consider this platform and the strategy to maximize it so that you can join the many entrepreneurs, business coaches and authors who are getting clients, creating new content, refining their offers, and selling more books using the power of Periscope.

I’d love to hear your questions and comments about Periscope and Live Streaming and your experience with it in your business. Please respond in the comments and let’s keep the conversation going. I hope you’ll connect with me on Periscope @debcomanwriting.

Engage on Periscope: Be a Viewer

Engage on Periscope: Be a Viewer

by | Uncategorized

 

Periscope, like all social media, is not a one-way street.It’s also not a place where you get in front of the camera and talk at people. It’s meant to be a conversation, even when you’re the only one front and center on camera.

For Periscope to grow your business, you need to do more than just broadcast to the masses. One of the best ways to have an impact, gain new followers, and nurture your relationship with other periscopes and your own viewers is to be a viewer and show up on other broadcasts.

Follow leaders on the platform and also ones in your area of expertise. There is always more to learn about this ever-evolving platform and it helps to stay current if you want to be seen as a leader in your area of expertise.

Consider your own list of followers. Are you following some of them? While it’s not necessary, nor advised, to follow all of them, follow the ones who broadcast on topics of interest, ones you can learn from, ones who could use your support.Bottom line: Follow some.

Show up on some broadcasts. Now, this does not need to be overly time-consuming. The very nature of the platform allows for people to pop in and out of broadcasts. You don’t need to be there for the duration (but it’s nice when you can be). When you are there, engage. Engage by commenting on what’s being shared in the broadcast and adding to the chat in ways that enhance the conversation. Add value but don’t take the focus off of the broadcaster. Be careful not to sell or come across as outshining the very person you intend to support. Be courteous. It’s like coming into someone else’s party. Be Periscope Polite.

Actively support by sharing broadcasts on twitter, Facebook and with your followers to whatever extent you feel comfortable. You don’t have to share to all three (or any) every time but it’s a nice gesture of support when you do.

An easy, and much-appreciated, way to support is to type content in the chat to help the broadcaster. This can be the highlights of the content they are sharing in short bullets of text. It can also be websites or other links they share verbally (since they can’t type in the chat as a broadcaster).

Support can continue after the broadcast when you have the ability to share and retweet the replay to their broadcast for up to 24 hours.

Each of the ways you support others on Periscope, contributes to your presence on the platform. Viewers who contribute to the conversation and support other broadcasters are often rewarded by gaining new followers. You also become memorable so that when your handle shows up in their Periscope feed, or when shared on social media like Twitter and Facebook, they may be more likely to tune into your Periscope broadcasts.

Being a viewer is part of an overall Periscope strategy to grow your business. This is one of many ways to have a bigger and more broad impact on this live streaming app. I’d love to hear how it helps and any other tips you’d add to this list. If you would like to explore how to get started on Periscope or how to improve your Periscope strategy so that you can grow your business as either a broadcaster or viewer, you can purchase a Periscope Breakthrough Strategy Session here. I’d love to help you grow your business and have some fun in the process.

And to learn more about Periscope, Blab, Facebook Live and the strategy of using them to gain collaborators, referral partners, and clients, consider a Live Stream Breakthrough Strategy Session.

Message Clarity is Critical for Better Content Conversion

Message Clarity is Critical for Better Content Conversion

by | Content Conversion


Writing with message clarity is critical for better conversion. If your messaging is a little blurry (like the photo here), you may be losing business. You’re turning people away at the door instead of inviting them in.

But, how do you get clear so you have better message clarity? You have so much to do when starting or even maintaining a business that you may not have the time (nor the skillset) to work on clarity or the message. There are networking events to go to, programs to develop, blogs to write and offers to promote! Who can find message clarity when we’re moving at the speed of light?

And yet, without a strong foundational messaging platform, all the rest is built on hollow ground.

Message Clarity Starts With Your Elevator Invitation

So, if you’re finding that you’re not confident in your “elevator invitation“ or that you struggle to come up with blog content or that you feel overwhelmed with it all, here’s a way to hone your message. Take a few minutes with your laptop open or a pad of paper and your favorite pen and answer the following to get started with better message clarity:

  1. Who am I (name, title, business name)?
  2. Who am I here to serve (my ideal target audience)?
  3. What do they GET when they work with me (not what do I GIVE them)?
  4. Why do I do this (my passion, vision, big WHY)?

When you put this all together and tweak it so it flows with ease, this is your elevator invitation. It becomes the foundation for all your content and messaging. You can repurpose it throughout your online presence. Are you doing that? Do you only use it at networking events? Does it roll off your tongue or get caught in your throat? You need to create one that feels right for you. It needs to be conversational and clear. It must speak to the people you’re wanting to reach.

Next Steps

I want to take the mystery and the struggle out of messaging and writing for your business. ALL of it. And, yes, I know that’s a tall order but the answer is really quite simple. It’s all in the strategy and some simple tips to help you create a writing practice whether or not you feel you have much skill in this. We can all learn! We can all improve.

If you need help getting clear on your messaging so you can write all the content you need for a successful business (elevator invitation, website copy, compelling opt-in, blogging, list nurturing and building, and social media) I can help you do it with ease through either a group program or privately.

Schedule a Free Discovery Call to explore how I might support you to get clear so you can get noticed online and get paid!

 

How to Carry Christmas Lessons into Next Year’s Business Plan

How to Carry Christmas Lessons into Next Year’s Business Plan

by | Uncategorized


How do we plan for next year’s business right now? I’m taking some lessons from the recent Christmas season in all its stress and glory and using them to plan what’s next.

Perhaps you can relate. I love Christmas. And, yet, Christmas can make me crazy: the to do list a mile long, the buying, the wrapping, the shipping, the decorating, the meal prep, the house cleaning, the blah, blah, blah…you get the idea, right?

All these things done in the name of celebrating both a religious and secular holiday at the same time. And the commercialism…let’s not even go to that place.

So, this year, early on in the season, I made a decision. I decided I was NOT going to get crazy this year. I was going to simplify. I was going to decide for myself and not be carried along by what everyone else does. I was going to choose how to spend my time and how to prepare and how to celebrate. The results made for a much more lovely and kinder Christmas.

Throughout it, I thought about my business, too, since I was still working pretty much through 12/23 and already focused on planning for next year. I had been spending a lot of time thinking about and strategizing content and helping my clients to do this, too, as I share about in Why Set the Stage to Write? So, it was natural to compare this time in my home life to my business life. Perhaps the same lessons had validity in the entrepreneurial world.

So often in my business, especially early on, I was swept up by what everyone else was doing, talking about, buying. It’s odd that as relatively intelligent people, we lose our ability to reason and process and decide for ourselves. Thoughts like: “Well, if I admire this person and this person is ______________(using, buying this program, doing this thing), then it MUST be good and I want it, too!” and “If the proverbial THEY say I NEED this if I ever want my business to grow, then I just MUST need it, right?”

I was fortunate that, sometimes, financial reality caused me to pass up some of these golden “opportunities.” Opportunities that for some were unopened programs collecting dust or buried in the deep, dark bowels of our emails. Or coaching programs that didn’t deliver on their promise of 6 figures in a single bound. Still, they were passed “opportunities” that left me feeling left out with the ever-wily FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) working overtime.

Fortunately, the Universe had my back and I was able to trust that maybe there was some unforeseen reason why I didn’t buy, do, or follow people down that inviting path of promises. Instead, I waited and, lo and behold, better opportunities showed themselves when I was able to see them for myself. Programs and courses that did deliver and a coaching program and community that surpassed anything I imagined in terms of guidance and support to actually DO and grow and not just support each other to talk about it!

Just like this Christmas when I decided not to put up all the 6 or 7 bin-fulls of decorations, complaining about how hard it was to get them out of and back into the crawlspace and displaying ones I didn’t really love anymore (or maybe never did!) but I was compelled to put out. Instead, I simplified by displaying a small sampling of things I love. (Did people even notice the difference?)

Or when I decided that instead of spending lots of time making all the deserts in addition to the entre, I would ask for help.

Or instead of buying things just to buy, I would invest in and offer what people needed.

And instead of being caught up (miserably I might add) in all the hubbub of the whitewater experience of a holiday gone wild, I would plan and choose how I wanted to spend my time out of a place of honoring myself and my process.

And, guess what? Christmas still came and it was as it should be. And I found I was more present, less stressed and more empowered to experience it on my own terms. And so, I’ll carry its lessons into next year’s Business Plan:

  1. Simplify. Harder and more work doesn’t always mean better.
  2. Ask for help. Solopreneurs don’t have to be alone or lonely.
  3. Give people what THEY say they need, not what I think they need.
  4. Plan and choose how to spend time.
  5. Honor myself and my process.


After all, I started my own business for it to be just that: my own. Why would I only look to everyone else’s for inspiration, motivation and direction when they already reside in me?

I hope that you had a memorable holiday. Any lessons you’re carrying into your next year? I’d love to learn from your experience, too. Please share in the comments and may this next year be one in which you feel empowered to decide, do, and grow!