Hubspot gives some great ideas around content. They have a new e-book called: 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas
Content creation is a way to get found by google, gives a great lead capture tool for your website, blog or Facebook Page and is a way to help prospective and existing customers get at taste of you.
Download here HubSpot’s “100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas.”
More than ever branding is about being human, real and having a meaningful connections with your customers.
To have a brand it was assumed you needed to be a big company. Not so. Everyone has a brand and it is up to you to look after it. A brand is how your customers and employees feel about your company. It is what makes you unique, special, loved. If you are in the service business a brand is a reflection of the actions you take and is ingrained in the values you hold. It is all about the “how” you do things. It is how you deliver those services that is as important as how that brand is marketed. It is a emotional connection that is important about a brand.
Kotler offers a concise definition of this emerging marketing paradigm: “Human-centric marketing is defined by brands [that] approach engaging their current and prospective customers via advertising and marketing tactics as whole human beings with hearts, minds, and spirits.”
We are now in a knowledge based economy and as a result of this information age which has technology at its core we as consumers are moving to a interaction, a conversation and a control over how we engage with brands. Websites, social networks, blogs, micro-blogging, mobile apps and podcasts are giving rise to a transparency between company and customer and giving everyone the choice to create, critique and produce a voice. As a result we are becoming more active, more mobile, more instant and more personal.
People are seeking more authentic meaningful connections with each other and with brands. While technology has assisted this chance for connection the underlying need is cultural and social connection.
Our brands are in the hands of our customers. They always have been, but now our customers are active and vocal. The perceptions about our brand can be spread across the internet in a nano second. A client once said to me “Dan, it is the little things that make all the difference.” I have to agree.
Here are my best little things list:
So the branding process must start from the Inside Out. What brand has a client given you? How do you behave and what values do you have for your small business?If your brand is the sum of all the experiences your product or service create, then what should you focus on?
What you should focus on?
What is your physical identity for your business?
Letterhead, logo, website, photo of your signage. Are they all telling the same story? Do they represent the values of your small business? Are you giving mixed messages?
Is the tone right? What needs to change. What people see is what they think they are going to get?
How are you different?
Do you make house calls as a vet?
Do you offer services that your competitors don’t?
Do you have a different pricing model?
Do you package your service in a unique way?
Having a branding positioning statement should answer a few questions: Who are you, what makes you special and what value or benefits do you deliver for your customers? Remember you don’t have to be unique, but valuable.
Everywhere you go there are marketing messages. We are overloaded with marketing. On toilet doors, shopping trolleys and now even on our mobile phones. People are ignoring these attempts to get attention and this is creating a big shift in the way small businesses should market themselves, moving from trying to interrupt, buy and bug consumers to engage, give and help them with all forms of useful content.
Content marketing is all about helping people. Giving great information and how to solve their particular problem. It is all about earning the permission to get attention.
“You can’t buy attention, you have to earn it.The little smart business is going to be able to out run and our compete and out run the big dump business.” Sonia Simone, Copyblogger
1.So how do we as small businesses create these pieces of content that attract ideal customers? I think as small businesses we need a content strategy based on engaging and helping our ideal customers.
I really like Scott Pape’s content strategy. He has a podcast called the Barefoot Investor and a great website. He by 
creating these great investor tips and content in a user friendly format creates trust and likability with an audience and gives him permission to enter the conversation with prospects. From this platform of content he can use other social media tools to share and build a community like is 12000 followers on Facebook! He is obviously doing a lot right. He is clear about solving the problems of every day people with a practical approach to personal finance!
I was giving a talk the other day and I think that service providers struggle when they think about how to create compelling content for their potential and existing customers. Here are some ideas that I like.
2. Check lists – my husband Mark MacInnis has a checklist of how to work with an architect. This tool is to assist people thinking about engaging with an architect, however by using this list prospects get an idea of how Mark’s work and contact him about engaging in the process.
3.Calculators and tools – I love tools. Especially if they are free! Hubspot a online marketing company gives away lots of valuable tools and as such build up a list of loyal followers, fans and clients.
4. Case studies – case studies are a great way of showing how you solve problems to prospective customers. So few people do this well. Clear Thought Consulting do an awesome job of a marketing Case Study where they have created a video and some quick facts and leaves you feeling that they really know there stuff.
5. Community focused Blog or website
There are those businesses that create something of use for all. I love sites like taste.com.au and MoneySmart.gov.au. These sites provide information but if the same concept was developed by a small business they would own that space as the expert in the minds of consumers in recipe ideas or money advice. Maybe you are a plumber or a tradesperson. Think about how many people are looking for good advice, tips and tricks and how you could provide content in many ways to solve these issues and as a by-product gain trust, respect and visibility!
Here are some great resources in building your content strategy that might assist you. Let us know how you are using content to market your small business today!
Visit: thecontentinstitute.com – there resources page is great
Conversation Triggers from Susan Bratton has some great tips
Dreamtime have some great free images you can use in your content
Measure what is being said about you using social mention.
Small businesses are in the box seat because they are often closer to the customer and can identify their problems. Now all they need to do is leverage new communication low cost marketing tools to help their customers and build their business word of mouth online and off.
Hugh Macfarlane runs MathMarketing which provides sales and marketing consulting to businesses across Australia and around the world. A key note speaker and author of The Leaky Funnel, Hugh provides some great insights that small businesses can leverage.
Hugh speaks about the customer buying path. How to ask the right questions about which buyers to focus on? How to improve your sales and marketing process and some great free resources on the Math Marketing website to start you on your way. Listen to the podcast here.
Here is a list of steps that small businesses can do to build a process around the sales funnel and management.
1. Position your company as a solution to a particular problem.
2. Once you have defined this problem, then begins the process of finding buyers that are likely to have a problem to you can solve.
3. Get your company on the list on a list of possible companies. Be known.
4.You need to get some of these buyers to recognise that they have the problem right now.
5. Those that don’t have that problem right now, earn the right to nurture them as prospects, so you can be there when the timing is right.
I asked Hugh about how small businesses choose what to focus on?
How am I different as a small service business? Because I can solve these problem better than any other alternatives. Hugh gives the example as a Financial planner who can solve the problem of a single dad and solving his particular problems of raising a family, protecting him income and being able to access money quickly if required. The Financial Planner that can focus on this issue will attract other similar clients that have the same problem. Talk about the problem and your unique expertise and insight into these problems for single dads.
How do you choose what problem to choose?
1. You need to be good at it.
2. It needs to be worthy of focus on it. It needs to be a problem that is pressing.
3. It needs to have fewer competitors
4. You could have choose 20 problems, but you choose the problem that is most attractive, growing, the one you solve it better,has limited competitors. This is the problem that is very likely that you will win the business. Get out of Jail free card, Hugh explains is when you are in front of a client is that you get the chance to solve their particular problem even if it wasn’t the original problem they might have inquired about.
Small businesses struggle to focus. We want to flexible, nibble and therefore we don’t have a consistent single message! Find something that you are uncommonly good at and then say it, solve that problem every day. Focus on this.
Some marketing you can do to create some lead generation.
Hugh explains, that as small businesses we are proud of the work we do. Many small businesses don’t focus on creating new demand. You know the problem.
1. Provide content that is useful to your ideal customer. Don’t call it a newsletter. Maybe it it s tool, download tips, podcast or white-paper.
2. Have a gathering of customers and or partners and have a discussion about the problems they are facing. This becomes content for your blog, etc and sometimes it will lead to a follow up conversation.
3. Engage your customers and prospects rather than pushing. Earn the right to communicate with these.
4. Then you can take it further with the permission to address their particular problem.
Sales Funnel
Most people think of the sales funnel, think of themselves. It should be called the buyers journey.
The buyer is thinking:
1. I recognise that you have a service but didn’t want or need it
2. You sent me something that was interesting. It is worth getting your emails.
3. I feel like a do have a problem, that maybe you can help with.
4. I need to solve this problem now.
5. I think about who can provide me the solution, you and others.
6. Then I think you will assist me better. You have given me reason to believe you will solve my problem best from the alternatives I know about.
How can small businesses provide some tactics around each of these steps to move their prospects to the next steps? Hugh suggests if we map out all of these tactics end to end and improve these stepping stones and touch points.
Here is a content strategy map from Eloqua that I have found useful:
Small businesses should build the plan together for the buying and sales process. You need buy in from everyone and their collective insight.
Measurement.
Have one measurement for sales. Have an input measure. An example is the number of needs meetings with new clients. Meet with three new prospects per week.
Listen to the full interview here.
Research from the Training Industry has come up with top 5 issues that sales teams face.
Top Five issues
Great audio from the American Marketing Institute and a talk from Corporate Visions or video on the research.
The basic premise is that marketing and sales need to work together to create the right tools and messaging that will make the best impact.
Here is a link to my slides on creating sales and marketing integration.
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