Marketing Machine

Building your marketing machine will not only help you to get a better idea of what you are doing and what you want to achieve but also make sure that you don’t miss anything. Content Marketing has been getting regular mentions for the last 10 years but still people with small businesses don’t get it. They will delve into Content Marketing for a short while and then give up because the returns aren’t as good as they were promised. Be warned, Content Marketing is a slow burner unless you get lucky first time out, a bit like local TV or radio advertising.

Not taking a strategic view

This probably doesn’t make sense to a small business – you just publish stuff and it gets seen, right?

Well no, not really.

Yes, you can just create stuff, text, pictures, video, audio, and get it out there on your website or Instagram feed. Sure, people will see it and they usually just scroll on without taking any action to respond to your stuff. Your friends and family will hit “Like” or send you a smiley but that is about it.

What is going wrong?

You are not taking a strategic view of your marketing, particularly your online marketing. You need to know what your message is, who is going to read it, what value they bring to your business, where to find them and a whole lot more. You also need to uncover what your marketing aims to achieve for your business so that you can begin to measure success and make adjustments where it is not working as well.

This is called a Content Strategy, and you need to have one.

A Strategy, what next?

Normally you would have some sort of plan that builds on the strategy and adds some flesh to the bones of your ideas. This contains what messages or stories you are going to publish and where you are going to publish them. It details what types of content, where these types will be published when and with what frequency. It will contain the keywords (yes, keywords) that you are targeting to get the best return and so “footfall” to your business.

This is your Content Plan and you will find that it takes time to build it.

Build it? With what?

You will certainly need to know who you are creating and publishing your content for. They will be your typical customers, your best customers and, yes, your worst customers, as well as people who don’t yet know that they’re going to become your customers.

You need to understand them, be able to describe them, their family circumstances and their work situation. You do this because your content is going to appeal to them and how can you appeal to them if you don’t know where their sweet spots are?

You are creating your Buyer Personas.

OK, but then what?

Your buyers are going to need to know how to buy from you. Having created your buyers’ profiles, you know where they are likely to start from. You need to lead them from there on the journey that will take them to your door with cash in hand, ready to buy. On this journey they will be distracted, not by Polar Bears but by your competition. Your competition is probably already doing this and so stealing your business from under your nose. You’d better get to work quick.

You have just created your Buyers’ Journey.

Are we there yet?

Not quite. You need the tools to make this all come together and work for you. First, you will need to check what you have created so far to make sure that your website, social media and other profiles are built to appeal to your personas and that they help them on their journey to becoming your customers.

You will also need to have an email marketing platform to do some direct marketing to people who are interested and some “re-marketing” to existing customers.

All of these tools must be synchronised to ensure that you have a continual and consistent flow of content that achieves your one aim of getting more business.

You don’t have to wait until the start of a new year or another month to make this work for you. If you have not already started, then the best time to start is now. Get in touch with us right now by completing our contact form.