content strategy

Jun

2018

Awkward Truth: Why Successful Content Marketing is a Commitment

Whether you are looking to incorporate a Content Plan into your marketing strategy or you have made a few attempts at developing your content but abandoned ship after not seeing results fast enough, I’m going to share with you why a decision to undertake Content Marketing, is not one that should be taken lightly. But when you finally do, you will reap long-term returns, all while greatly benefiting humanity.

This is because Content Marketing is an asset and costs associated with content should be considered as an investment rather than the traditional view of marketing as a cost.

Let’s shed some light on the concept of content as an asset by looking at the Disney brand. When reviewing the entirety of assets owned by Disney you will see among them, that content from multiple projects are in fact considered assets, as they continue to provide revenue and grow the Disney brand. In a similar way, when you develop your content strategy consider it as a long-term investment in the content asset class, and not as a direct cost because this is not an accurate portrayal of Content Marketing as a strategy.

Unlike an advertisement, which dies off once you stop paying for the ad, the value of content grows over time, stays in your brand content library, and thus has a long-term value that continues to attract more and more people to your brand and website while educating and serving. Paid advertisements are great and do have their place. However, to a consumer, content is the promise of VALUE, education, entertainment, and plain usefulness.

Once you decide to commit to a content marketing plan, the payoffs are huge. You can consider it as a sort of marketing retirement account for your brand, one with considerable growth potential.

[su_pullquote]“Every brand I’ve ever worked with that has committed to content marketing has seen a positive ROI. And their return isn’t 10 or 20 or 30 percent higher than their other marketing investments, it’s 100, 300, 400 percent higher. Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” – Technology Advice [/su_pullquote]

When you make monthly investments toward your blogs, videos, articles, infographics, presentations, eBooks, case studies, whitepapers, quizzes, and other interactive content, you can expect to see 100% – 400% ROI. The big keywords are planning, commitment, and patience. As with most things that are well worth the reward, like a happy marriage, a fit physic, and a healthy investment portfolio — Content Marketing, when given the proper respect and commitment will too be an extreme value to your organization.

In fact, the main difference between Content Marketing Plans that succeed and those that don’t, almost always boil down to commitment. It’s the difference between being “somewhat committed” which results in a 40% success rate for Content Marketing and “extremely committed” which results in an 83% success rate, which is where you begin to see the highest tiered ROIs.

Short-term ROI is not the correct marker for which to judge your efforts, as you might be disappointed when three months down the line your plan is only just gaining traction. It is long-term sustained gains from a growing asset; this is the way you want to view your content strategy. Younger businesses that get excited about Content Marketing as their core strategy, often times dabble, see little results, and prematurely abandon their plan of content as a core strategy before it had time to mature.

It is the wiser, older businesses that have a deeper understanding and knowledge that they must give their strategy room to grow with patience and diligence; that’s when you begin to see huge results that grow exponentially over time. These wiser organizations with increased experience and foresight see the greatest success and ROI with their marketing plans, especially Content Marketing. It’s a great idea to take a lesson from those who are succeeding with content marketing, learn from their mistakes and successes, adopt their methodologies and scale your efforts accordingly.

Not even some of the most successful ad campaigns will see results overnight. Take for example the rebranding of Marlboro, which was once a failing brand standing at 34^th in the line of cigarette brands and known primarily as a women brand of cigarettes. Marlboro hired ad executive Jay Conrad Levinson, who overhauled the image of Marlboro into the cowboy aesthetic of Marlboro Country or “Marlboro Man”. They invested millions into campaign ads, magazines, and commercials. After just one year they met to review the campaign’s results and witnessed zero increase in sales. They were still the 34^th brand of cigarettes and still primarily associated with women. The person in charge of marketing could have decided the campaign was a failure and moved on to a different strategy after seeing zero results the first year. However, he was aware that these things take time and decided to stay the course of the “Marlboro Man”. A few years into the Marlboro Country commitment, they became known as both the main cigarettes for men as well as women and rose to their well-known #1 cigarette brand spot. Imagine if they would have given up after 1 year of not seeing any results from millions of dollars in ads? Not only would their initial efforts had been wasted, but also they would have likely jumped from one failing plan to another simply because they lacked the foresight to commit to their strategy. Of course, perhaps fewer people would have died and been addicted to cigarettes, YES, but aside from the carcinogenic horrors of smoking, as a product in itself, this is a lesson in knowing when to stay the course.

So if being committed is a prerequisite for success with Content Marketing, then what exactly do you need to know before deciding that content is the best path for your brand? It’s time to get real. I am going to go through a reality check of things to consider if you’re thinking about implementing a content marketing plan or are thinking about jumping back into your content marketing plan.

#1 Patience

Before hopping on board, you will need to have the patience to commit to a long-term content marketing plan. Depending on your goals and project, plan for an absolute minimum of 1 year.

Though your plan should be structured it should also be nimble and able to change according to analytics. Either way, you need to have patience in order to harness the power of your Content Marketing Plan and be 100% committed to its creative flow, execution, delivery, analytics, and reassessment.

#2 Know what your goals are + how you will measure them:

Brand Awareness: Referral links, social buzz, downloads, document views, video views, page views.

Engagement: Inbound links, forwards, likes, tweets, shares, and blog comments.

Lead Generation: Conversion rates, blog subscriptions, email sign-ups, form completions, downloads.

Sales: Revenue from online sales, revenue from offline sales, reporting

Customer retention and Loyalty: Retention rates, continual contract rates, and subscription rates.

Upselling and Cross-selling – sales for subsequent products and services.

#3 Know your audience

Have a strong and definitive hold on your target audience. Develop your buyer personas.

#4 Topics + Questions to Answers

Know the topics you will need to cover based on your target audiences.

#5 Types of Content

Know the types of content your audience will respond best to:

#6 Know what works

Know what content has worked in the past. Conduct a Content Audit.

#7 Budget

Know your budget. Allocate an appropriate budget that sees your plan

into the future.

#8 Write-up your plan.

Develop and document the official Content Plan and Strategy.

As growth propelling and empowering as a Content Strategy can be, it’s wise to address whether your organization is ready to embark on a full content plan and then, if you decide you are, develop a long-term plan and, stay the course. In order to truly enjoy the fruits of building your content library, be ready for full commitment.

Nov

2017

Marketing: For the Discouraged Social Entrepreneur

You’ve come up with countless ideas, created brilliant products, useful services, and are eager to elevate your company and community to levels far beyond what you’ve ever seen.

The thing is, you’re not alone.

So many business owners like yourself have wanted to do the same, but lack the knowledge, the time, and the strategy.

At A.R. Marketing House, we have noticed a consistent pattern amongst the socially conscious clients we have worked with as well as businesses we have come across. That is, when it comes to developing and implementing a marketing strategy, many business owners struggle because they either 1) lack a strategy with objectives and subjective goals 2) don’t have a strategy that aligns with their personality +brand 3) don’t have a strategy that aligns with their long-term marketing budget 4) do not stick to their plan long enough to see expected results.

But we see your success, we support your amazing ideas, and we want to help you launch your potential to new heights and bring your dreams into reality. So, we’ve come up with this little cheat sheet for you to wash away your discouragement and get back on the marketing horse. Here are 6 ways to amplify your business and bring to life those brilliant ideas toward making a positive impact while achieving great long-term success.

Imagine the Greatest End-Goal First, THEN reverse engineer it

One trait we see often is leaders seeing an end result without really taking the time to understand the methods of getting there. It is so important to set goals, work on a strategy, come up with clear objectives, and understand what tactics you need to take to ensure you are reaching these milestones. You need a plan, a CLEAR plan with measurable results. But sometimes this is easier done in REVERSE. Yes, seeing the end result and working your way back from that vision has proven to be the method that some of the most successful entrepreneurs and change makers actively use.

What do you need to get there? Visualize the end, then close your eyes and walk backward from that goal to narrow down the steps it took to get you there. You might find that you need to do some additional research. Have others achieved similar results to those you hope to achieve? How can you be different? Greater? More creative? Help others? More than just wanting to get to that point of success, you need to plan for it strategically and cleverly. Understand the possible repercussions of steps that can go awry and mitigate your risks by having options within your plan, like a roadmap with alternative routes.

Strategize and Re-strategize

Often times, it is easy to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate results. The important thing to understand is immediate success rarely means long-term success. Sure, maybe some businesses start off with a bang, but this is not the norm, especially if you are in a field that is either not widely understood or is shrouded with miseducation. Sometimes your brilliant ideas will have to be introduced and reintroduced many times over before even the brainiest of people begin to grasp what you are truly trying to do. Whether you are introducing a politically controversial product or educating on a spiritually profound message, you will not only need to give yourself some time to find your voice within your message, you will also have to give your audience some time to become educated, by you, of course. However, after about a year of solidly sticking to your plan, assess what worked best and look to see what new methods are currently out, then…re-strategize! Trust your analytics and your instincts, then move forward with the knowledge you have gained. In what ways did your strategy lack? Did your audience grow? Were you able to convert leads into sales? You already have a plan in place, just look for gaps and focus on what can be done to improve going forward. It won’t happen overnight. If you don’t believe us, check out how long these “overnight successes” ACTUALLY took. *Hint: It definitely wasn’t overnight. Of course these are larger companies but the reasoning and logic also applies to small and midsize businesses.

Timing is Everything

Marketing is more than just posting on social media here and there. You need to be strategic. Create a calendar. Know when you should be posting your original content, how frequently, and know why this all relates back to your overall marketing goal. More than just posting on social media, you need to create conversation on more than just one platform. Start a blog, newsletter, social media strategy, and more than that, focus on collaborations with influencers.

Digital technology allows numerous avenues to educate based on your business or practice. But it’s key to narrow down the focus on how each platform leverages your strategy best. When do you want to reach your goal? Is this plan going to do anything for you in the short-term? If not, is it worth what it will do for your goals in the long-term? Now, I know this sounds like a lot of work, but creating a marketing calendar will greatly help you along the way. Creating a calendar will allow you to improve your time management and ensure you are relaying a consistent message across various platforms to the right people.

Remember WHY you started and tell people

When you first decided you wanted to start this business, you knew what you wanted to accomplish. You knew your skill, gift, or wonderful product was worth a formal delivery to the world. Keep this in mind as you continue on this rollercoaster to success. It won’t be easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The important thing is to remember why you did this and why you want to continue to do it. Constantly remind yourself of the WHY and work on achieving small milestones that will set you up for long-term success. Add the WHY into your messaging, make sure that you are storytelling and capture your audience with your true motivations, they will appreciate and relate to you more for it. What’s more, you will hit some emotional health markers with your vulnerability, see Brene Brown.

SMARKET yourself

It is so easy to put your marketing strategy on the back-burner when you don’t see results right away. But doing this before you’ve accessed the intelligence of your content and the strategy of your delivery, is not fair. When you find yourself on the slippery slope of doing nothing and re-sharing other people’s content, STOP and focus on the various ways you can contribute to your own smart content creation. With smart content creation, your success is dependent on following an educational purpose, an audience generating data collection format, utilizing various and specific avenues for delivery, consistent implementation, tracking, adjusting based on analytics, patience, and spiritual alignment. Actually, you might want to start with the latter.

You can’t expect your audience will show up without knowing who you are and why you’re special. By creating smart content, you are allowing your readers, followers, and clients the chance not only to get to know you but to develop and understand and be educated by you; a relationship built on trust developed by you.

The modern marketing plan, or as we call it, smart content creation, is more than just posting ads online or in the local paper, but more about nurturing a relationship and moving from tangential to tangible continuing past the sell, into the long-term.

In the digital arena, smart content creation relies heavily on making yourself known and leveraging yourself to your best-suited audience, then demonstrating leadership with your unique expertise.

6. Hire a Pro.

If you’ve made it to this point of the blog you’re either struggling pretty hard or you’re eager to apply the best tactics to your marketing strategy. Under both circumstances, tip 6 can easily get you where you want to be. There are professional marketers whose job is to put you and your business out there. They already know how to discover the intricacies and the methods that would work best for your goals and are dedicated to meeting your needs while you are out there perfecting your craft, improving your product, and working on sustaining your business. At A.R. Marketing House our goal is to learn the ins and outs of what it is you offer so we can reach the right people with the right message to get them to invest in what you have to offer. We have done this for a variety of industry leaders and are eager to elevate you to unsurpassed levels.

With these tips, we are confident that your business will flourish! Whether you’ve just decided to market your business or have been working at this for some time, but need a little help, we are eager to help you and encourage you to seek help from pro’s, like the A.R. team.

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