Content Marketing Strategy Building

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This is a condensed version of my free report that accompanies my Tiny Business, Mighty Profits newsletter.  The Tiny Business, Mighty Profits Report goes into greater detail but this is a great primer for anyone that is interested in learning to market a tiny business in the Marketing 2.0 era.

The concept of Content Marketing on the Internet is growing as small, medium and even mega-sized businesses come to grips with the fact that traditional marketing techniques are not as effective as they once were.

Defining Content Marketing

Before we jump into the business of creating a Content Marketing plan, let’s define Content Marketing for the uninitiated folks.

Read this carefully:

I define Content Marketing as “the act of creating consistent, relevant and valuable content and distributing it to your target market with the aim of creating a mutually beneficial business relationship.”

Creating a Content Marketing plan has three major steps:

• Finding and Listening To Your Target Market
• Creating Content On Your “Hub”
• Distributing Your Content Through “Spokes”

Step 1 – Finding and Listening To Your Target Market

If you have identified your target market, you have already fought half the battle.  There is an entire section in my free Tiny Business, Mighty Profits report about identifying your target market.

Once you have identified this group of people, it is time to go out and FIND them.  Chances are, members of your target market are congregating on the Internet in various places.

The video below shows you how I go about doing the research necessary to find my target audience in places like:

• Blogs
• Forums
• Physical Meet-Ups or Networking Events
• Twitter

You will find that something amazing is going on in the places I mention above.  People are having conversations.  People are building relationships.  People are venting about their problems.  People are providing solutions to those problems.

In other words, they are talking about the issues that surround your industry and niche.

You should be listening and taking note of these issues — you will be using this new found knowledge in Step 2 of your Content Marketing plan.

Watch this short video that shows you how I find and listen to my audience:

Step 2 – Creating Content On Your “Hub”

If you have already started your tiny business, you may already have a website or blog.

This is your “hub.”

It is where all of your content and thus your marketing messages reside.  It is from here that you will distribute your marketing messages to your target market through the “spokes” we will discuss in Step 3.

Although you may already have a website for your tiny business, it is critical that your “hub” contain a blog.  A blog (and a self-hosted  WordPress blog at that) is the easiest and most powerful platform from which to broadcast your message.  WordPress is far and away the most user friendly and well equipped blogging platform available.

If you need help setting up a WordPress blog, watch this 4 part video series that shows you EXACTLY how to set up your very own business blog.

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Index of All Videos – Click to Play

Video 2 – Installing WordPress
Video 3 – Design
Video 4 – Pages and Posts

You have listened carefully to your target market and you have taken note of the concerns, issues and problems that they are having.

It is time to deliver content via your WordPress blog that will solve these problems.  Content creation can come in the following forms:

• Text
• Video
• Audio
• Images

Consider your strengths when deciding upon the form that your content will take.

Are you a strong writer?  Are you a strong speaker?  Would you be comfortable in front of a camera?  Would you be more comfortable with just a microphone and no camera?  Does your industry lend itself well to images?

The content that you create for your target market can take any of the forms above but your strategy must always follow The Three Pillars of Content Marketing:

Pillar 1 -  Your Content Must Be Consistent

The most difficult part of any Content Marketing plan is consistency.  You must continue to publish your content on a regular basis.  A good rule of thumb is that you should be creating something of value every business day.  It takes hustle, it takes perseverance and it takes will power to be successful with this type of marketing.

Pillar 2 -  Your Content Must Be Relevant

This should go without saying, but the content that you create for your target market should be relevant to them.  People usually miss the mark with this when they skip Step 1 — and don’t listen to their target market first.  They make assumptions and those assumptions are sometimes wrong.

Pillar 3 -  Your Content Must Be Valuable

This is the most important of the three pillars.  If you aren’t creating something valuable for your market, you will be ignored.  And there is nothing more deadly to a business than being ignored.  Concentrate on creating high quality content that provides a benefit to your target market.

Step 3 – Distributing Your Content Through “Spokes”

The last step in a successful Content Marketing strategy is DISTRIBUTION.  The Internet can be used to “broadcast” your content, and thus your marketing message, using hundreds (perhaps thousands) of free tools.

The key to your strategy will be selecting a few “spokes” through which to get your marketing messages out to your market.  You will need to bring the content to them, instead of expecting them to come to you.

Go back to the research that you did in Step 1 and determine the best places to place your content.  DO NOT attempt to use every tool available.  You will never get anything accomplished — remember that you must be consistent.

Download the full version of my Content Marketing strategy eBook entitled Tiny Business, Mighty Profits by completing the form below.

Tagged as: Business Blogging, content marketing, meet up, rss, twitter, you tube, youtube