Businesses struggle to create content because they don’t know what kind of content to create.
If you’ve only create content focused on your business, product or services alone then you probably aren’t getting the engagement you are wanting.
You need to be creating content for your audience about your audience.
Businesses are always asking what type of content they should be creating and how to create content. Content can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.
What Kind of Content Should I be Creating?
This is probably one of the questions that we get asked most, “What kind of Content Should I be Creating?”.
Should you be doing videos, should you be doing blogs? What do you say in those videos? What do you say in your blogs?
Today I am going to help you figure out how to do this.
Understand your Target Audience
Who is your Target Audience?
Understand who is it that you’re trying to reach out to. Really try to understand them, figure out who you are trying to reach.
What are their ages, who are these people, know what their wants and needs are?
What are their desires are and what they are interested in, what keeps them up at night, their dreams, their fears?
The better you understand your audience, the better you can target your product or service to them.
You have to spend a lot of time here, this will help you develop your content and businesses tend to skip over this step.
Understand their Problem
What are their Problems?
Everybody has a problem and your product or service is going to solve this.
To do so, you need to understand the difference between external problems and internal problems.
External problems are between an individual and external forces.
Internal problems are deeper and refer to an individual’s internal struggle.
A lot of marketing material is basically focused on external problems when in reality we make our decision based off of internal problems.
So, it goes back to, what keeps these people up at night?
The more you understand your target audiences problem, the easier it’s going to be to create content that gives them a solution.
Give Them a Solution
Create the Solution
So what kind of content should you be producing?
Create your content through all sources, guides, checklists, videos, blogs, posts, all of it.
Avoid confusing your audience by talking only about your business, your product or service, talk about them. Their problem, and how you are going to be the guide to their solution.
Example, if somebody comes to you and says, “Hey I’m a first time home buyer,” I’m just using mortgage for an example, “I’m a first time home buyer.” Okay, what is their problem? They might have issues with their credit score, they might, can’t find a home, they can’t afford a home, well if you can create content that answers that and says, okay here, as a first time home buyer, here is how you can fix your credit score. Here is how you can find an affordable home. That’s the kind of content you need to be producing.
Once your content is created, you need to put a call to action:
Direct them to a link or a phone number
Collect their information such as an email address (a way for them to get more access to your content)
Give them something for free
Don’t forget, you’re creating this content for a reason and that’s to grow your business and get more customers.
In conculsion, you want to understand your target audience, what they like, what they don’t like, their problems. Understand their internal problem, what is it that they’re facing? Take that knowledge to show them how they can use your content to solve their problem. It’s that simple.
So if you have questions, let us know, but that is it. Very simple.
I just got home from work when I hear a knock at my door. Thinking it was one of the neighborhood kids, I opened it with a big smile.
The smile disappeared when I found an older man looking a little angry. This free-loader stretched out his righteous hand full of papers and said,
“I’m so and so from the FTC, and we are opening up an investigation against you and you have a $150,000 fine. Here are your papers. Sign here!”
This was a little dishearting, but also kind of amusing.
I had been out of the financial markets for over 18 months. I lost everything in the crash of 2008. I went from a net worth of 6 Million to a negative net worth of 3 million.
Big swing…
I assumed the case was something to do with investments I had done earlier.
Here’s the problem:
The Government is all-powerful. No matter what you do, they will win. I have seen some people try to take them on and they end up wasting years of their life, and all of the resources, with the hope of winning.
Hope is powerful, and yet dangerous.
The Government has unlimited funds, unlimited time, and the decision-makers are in their pockets.
You can’t win.
It’s a bit like David and Goliath. There is no way I am winning without divine intervention.
Long story short…
There was a particular guy in on this investment, who filed a complaint which somehow pulled my name into the mix.
The FTC was coming after me because of an investment that had gone south. They wanted a fall guy; it was me.
I didn’t know this sketchy fella, but later on, he would prove to be the dishonest one. He had taken peoples money when he shouldn’t have.
But that didn’t matter. The FTC wanted to show a win.
So, I did the next best thing.
I became a dead dog. A lesson I learned from Dale Carnegie years earlier.
I rolled over and let them have their way. I groveled, begged, and swallowed every ounce of pride I had.
To be honest, I didn’t have much pride at that time.
“No One Ever Kicks a Dead Dog.”
The Lawyer at the FTC just had to show a win, and I just wanted to move on.
She needed to make her bosses happy. It wasn’t about the money; they have plenty of that.
It was about the win.
I wasn’t going to fight, so I gave them their win, and I moved on.
They had me sign some paper that didn’t admit or deny anything, and it was over. They got the win.
Weird right?
What could have been years of fighting and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, turned into a couple of phone calls and some faxed papers.
The lesson is this…
Find out what your customers want and give it to them.
It’s that simple.
If you get them what they want, it could save you a lot of time, money, and energy.
I watch too many marketing agencies continue to waste time and money on things their customers do not need. Like expensive website designs, SEO results, empty promises, wasted PPC budgets, and bogus marketing campaigns.
It’s not complicated; my customers want more business.
Words matter. And the words we use will determine whether we will earn business from a prospect, or they will go someplace else.
Confuse you lose. People need to know what you do and how you are going to solve their problem. The first step is to create a message that you and your team will use.
The message needs to answer the questions … what do you do?
Here’s a simple formula:
[What you do] to [what’s the benefit].
Here are some examples of Unique Selling Propositions or one-liners that are simple and effective:
“Video Marketing Campaigns to Grow Your Business”
“Workshops to Help Clarify Your Message”
“Addiction Treatment Center to Help You Beat Addiction and Be Happy Again”
A bad one-liner is product-focused and self-focused. Keep your message customer, and problem/solution focused.
Here’s another formula you can use to help create your Unique Selling Proposition:
You know [problem]? Well, what we do is [solution]. In fact, [proof]
An example using the formula above:
“You know how businesses struggle to get leads and sales? We create marketing campaigns to generate leads and sales. We helped a plumbing business grow 20% this year.”
Marketing becomes easier when you realize your prospect has three options.
Buy from you
Buy from your competitor
Do nothing
We tend to focus on our competitors, but the biggest problem is inertia. We so are bombarded with ads, calls, messages, and texts that we tend not to take action.
Goal number one?
Convince the prospect why they should buy.
You can do this by keeping your message simple and create multiple touches.
Here’s a real conversation I had with a business owner where we discovered her Unique Selling Proposition.
My bathroom is the most profitable square feet in the house. Whether I am in the shower or cutting off the circulation to my legs, the ideas are always flowing.
They are usually money makers.
I’ve been getting daily deposits of marketing advice from the famous Seth Godin. His latest book, “This is Marketing” has a couple of one-liners that are worth mentioning.
After months of hearing whines from my small but good looking following, I have decided to finally teach a little video marketing method that I have kept to myself.
Why?
Because I am going to be switching things up a bit. It’s time to become a lot more outspoken when it comes to marketing campaigns. I’m going to lay it out on the table so that businesses can make better decisions.
I’m tired.
Tired of seeing companies blow their budget on bad Google Ad campaigns
Tired of companies hiring the cheapest digital marketing agencies expecting to get everything
Tired of bad messages
Tired of seeing expensive commercials that mean nothing to the consumer
Tired of so many lousy ads
The list keeps going.
Man, that was a bit negative.
Sorry, I will lay off a bit.
But, I am calling some of you out… 🙂
So here’s something that will brighten your day.
The last 12 months I have been testing my audiences on YouTube Ads. I’ve been looking for the best audiences to increase my conversions.
Here’s one you can use that will give you a good ROI.
Download your lists and upload those emails to Google Ads.
Once you uploaded them, you can create a killer YouTube campaign.
Trust me…
It works like a charm.
Here is a video where I show you how to do this.
Enjoy the free be and only share this with your Mom.
Happy Marketing. It’s time to go lift, eat breakfast, and get to making some money.
