Episode 220 - How Does Content Marketing Convert

Today's topic is all about content marketing, and how it converts into more sales, more phone calls, more visits to your retail location, and just more overall conversations and conversions. 

I want to start by really talking about the role of content marketing in the whole marketing process. This is one of those that a lot of business owners see as something that's beneficial. Whether that's putting out content on social media, doing a webinar, or a live event at your physical location, or blog posts, they see or at least know that this stuff would be valuable. However, what I'm surprised about is how quickly people give up. 

I will give you a perfect example. Basically, I'm 220 episodes in on this podcast, just over seven months. And I'd be lying if I were to tell you that this is driving tons of customers to us, left and right and then it's making me tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. To be honest, I very easily could have given up after the first month or so when I didn't see a positive return on my time. 

However, with content, there are two things that I want you to really start to think about as we talked through today's episode. 

The first thing that I want you to think about and look at is what a conversion used to be. It used to be somebody filling out a long-form, somebody calling in and giving you their information, or somebody kind of emailing into some kind of info@abc.com, for example. Notice that I said, used to — that used to be what was considered a lead. Now what we're looking at and what we're seeing better success with, is a lead is really more of the start of a conversation. Ultimately, I want to say, a conversation is a new conversion. 

When you start to think about the types of content you're going to put out, and how do you get this content to convert, I want you to start to think about that as being your number one goal. How can this content start conversations rather than how can this content drive me more sales today? And I think what you're going to start to find is that a lot of the content you're putting out was more like those 30-second or 60-second commercials that are in the middle or in-between a show that you're watching on TV, for example. If you know your attitude over what do you do with a TV commercial and you know your behavior is usually to press pause or fast-forward, or you'll let it run, but you'll turn the volume on mute, and then you'll go multitask on to your cell phone or something like that. Now, if you know that that's what you're doing, what do you need to do to change that? 

I want you to start to think about your content as opposed to being the commercials. I want you to think about your content to be more of a show. I want your content to be the main attraction and not to be seen as the commercials. It doesn't matter what business, industry, or niche you are in — start to look at the type of content that you can put out that is helpful, authentic, and engaging. Ultimately, your goal is to create content that's going to start to drive more conversations. 

Let's just go through a couple of industries and I'll give you some examples, so you can start to see a little bit more about what I'm talking about. I'll do some that have a physical retail location and some that don't.

Perhaps you own a clothing store. Sadly enough, clothing stores have gotten decimated with COVID-19. What do you do to get people not just back in your store, but showing that you're confident and kind of how you're protecting them and all that? You might want to re-listen to some of the content that I've put out about —those grand reopening celebrations. That's not really the content that we're focusing on for the long-term game by any means — that is short-term. This is what you need to do now to make sure you continue to stay in business. 

So you might say, “Well, the content we've been putting out in the past has been specials and just featuring different outfits and things like that.” I would push back and ask you these questions:

• Is that starting a conversation? 
• Is it helpful, authentic, and engaging? 
• Is it the main attraction? 
• Is it really being seen as a commercial? 

If you really start to think about that, and as I challenge you to go through that, you probably would answer that it's really not any of those. So, what could you do that starts to fit those criteria? 

1. Start to put out content about trends that you're seeing here, the clothing trends that you're seeing, and then ask a question. What are the trends you're seeing? Do you agree with these trends? Give me your feedback. 
2. Take them into your closet and show them what outfits you have and what things that you've decided not to wear. 
3. Show them how to care for their boots or sneakers, dresses, purses, jeans — step by step, helpful content, engaging content, and just start some conversations. 

The key is to make sure that your content has to be about starting conversations. 

If you're a CPA, and even if you just do personal taxes, you don’t do anything with businesses, you can still start posting content that converts. A lot of CPAs are posting the same kind of content year after year after year — here are a couple of five deductions or a reminder of your tax deadlines. That's fine and dandy, but if every single CPA is posting the same content, how do you stand out? How do you actually get people to engage with your content? Why not post something the top five financial books and then you do a review of each of those books and then you ask people to read them. You do a Book of the Month Club, where the first 10 people get a copy of the book for free. And then everyone else is welcome to join in but they've got to purchase the book. You put a private Facebook group together and you call it “Saving Money in Wichita” if you are in Wichita and the group is all about saving and investing money, for example.

It's all about getting those conversations moving, and then leveraging your content to do so. What I encourage you to do from a content standpoint is focus on what content you are able to produce in the greatest quantity with the biggest impact. Everyone is a little bit different there — some people love audio, others love video, or some people just want to do text. I don't want to pigeonhole you so that this becomes a huge process. I need you to pick one method, preferably video or audio, because then those pieces of content can then translate into other mediums. 

My podcasts, for example, gets transcribed and turned into blog posts. Those blog posts become social media fodder. And now, we're in the process of taking these different podcasts, taking the transcriptions, and putting a couple of little mini books together. 

So now we have audio, we have blog posts, we have social media content, and we have books — all about giving value, as well as giving helpful, authentic, and engaging content to continue to stir conversations and position us as the experts in authority. That is the key to why you want to continue doing this, your business will be seen as the authority — you personally will be seen as the authority. As you continue to post more and show up in more places and more mediums, you will become the authority and your content will start to convert by way of more conversations, which leads to more sales. 

Content marketing is a perfect strategy for the long-game, definitely one that you want to be involved in. 

Hope you enjoyed today’s topic. See you all tomorrow. Get out there, make a change, and take some action.